The 5 Essential Pilates Principles You Need to Know to Maximise Your Gains

By Elise Phillips, BESS, 200YT, CPI (APPI)

You may know Pilates has had a massive boom of popularity in the fitness industry. It is currently the fastest growing form of exercise in Australia. The biggest takeoff happened during and post COVID, mostly because people went looking for a form of exercise that is effective and that they could do in their own home.

Another reason why Pilates is so well loved is because of its mindfulness and breath aspect, contributing to enhanced mind-body connection. Mindfulness is becoming increasingly favoured in exercise due to its mental health and stress relieving benefits!

Proven Benefits of Pilates

Melbourne Pilates Studio focuses on core engagement, alignment and lengthening through the spine and limbs.

Regularly practising Pilates has been linked with improved measures of quality of life, postural balance, as well as overall health and wellbeing.

Since Pilates places large emphasis on core activation, there are strong links with regularly practising Pilates and improved lumbopelvic stabilisation. This means greater strength in the lower back and pelvis region, which impacts how we walk, sit, stand and run.

The Five Essential Pilates Principles

1.BREATHING

Place a hand on your belly and a hand on your breastbone. Take some deep breaths in through your nose and out through your nose. Bring your awareness to where the air is travelling as you inhale. Ideally, we want your diaphragm (the dome shaped muscle under your rib cage) to gently move downwards and outwards. Following this, your chest and rib cage will gently rise. As you exhale, feel your belly gently deflate as your diaphragm effortlessly pulls inwards and up to its starting position. Allow your chest to fall.

2.CENTERING

Your deep core consists of four muscles: Pelvic Floor, Diaphragm, Transverse Abdominis (TA) and Multifidus.

The way we get clients to engage properly through their deep core starts with pelvic awareness in the Pilates Rest Position.

Lying on your back (Or if you’re pregnant, sit on a Swiss ball), places your hands on your hip bones at the front of your pelvis. Imagine your pelvis is a bowl of water. Gently tip the bowl of water towards your belly button (Posterior tilt), and then tip the bowl down towards your thighs (Anterior Tilt). Do a few of these ‘Pelvic tilts’.

Next, find the middle point between your anterior and posterior tilt, this is your ‘neutral’ pelvic positioning. You should feel most of your lower back touching the mat (It’s okay if there’s a small gap). Imagine you have a blueberry underneath your lower back. Keeping a light pressure on this blueberry, draw your belly button into your spine.

3.RIBCAGE PLACEMENT

To maintain and create optimal spinal alignment, our general rule of thumb is ‘ribs over pelvis’ in a standing/sitting position. A helpful cue we use to correct ribcage placement is to ‘soften the breastbone into the mat’. To check for ‘flaring ribs’, lie on your back in the Pilates Rest Position.

Bring both of your arms slowly up from your mat to above your head, and then start to bring them behind your head. Ensure that the distance between your bottom ribs and hip bones stay the same. And maintain pressure on the imaginary blueberry under your lower spine to avoid arching. Close your eyes if comfortable, this is generally the easiest way to build body awareness!

4.SHOULDER BLADE POSITIONING

Your shoulder blades sit like two discs on the back of your ribcage. Come into the Pilates Rest Position and bring your hands up in the air (it can be helpful to hold an object with both hands such as a Pilates ball or ring). As you exhale, gently offer your hands/object up to the ceiling.

Your two shoulder blades will gently be pulled away from each other as you feel your outer shoulder region peel off the mat. Now imagine those discs are gently being pulled back together as you squeeze your shoulders back down into the mat. Keep your arms straight for both of these movements. This exercise is called ‘scapula isolations’, and we use it for retraining the upper spine and improving shoulder blade control and mobility.

5.HEAD AND NECK POSITIONING

Our general cue in Clinical Pilates for neck positioning is imagining you are softly holding a peach under your chin. Pilates is all about creating length, so ensure that your neck and spine are elongated throughout your movements.

This simple checklist has assisted most of our clients build body awareness and correct their posture for exercise. Pilates has many benefits you must experience to understand. If you have always been curious about Pilates, book in with one of our experienced Instructors today.

Let the pulses begin!