How APPI Matwork Pilates can support your clients wellbeing at home
The dust has settled. Time to slow down and work on body and mind - Pilates.
Time to connect online through video conferencing with friends and participate in online classes - Pilates.
An opportunity for self-empowerment - movement is medicine - Pilates.
As people accept we are likely going to be living this way for a while, Pilates is needed now more than ever. Consistent, thought out, safe and effective Pilates.
For the newly termed “Staying at Home Athlete”:
- Sat at their “desk”
- Stressed and not breathing properly
- Exercising and improving their home
The “Home Athlete” whether sat at a wannabe desk, flailing around the living room, getting all Marie kondo around the house, repainting everywhere or meticulously cutting the grass with nail scissors is in need of help.
Enter (via Zoom) - YOU - with your APPI toolbelt.
Ergonomics
“The best posture is your next posture”
Advice around set up is important, it just comes second fiddle to MOVEMENT. Intentional Movement. PILATES.
Movement
On a basic level, getting up and walking around every 30 minutes.
Getting specific, moving the body into spaces it hasn’t been for the last (hopefully only) 30 minutes.
Getting mindful, focus on where the movement is and where you want it to be.
Sitting Posture
Pelvis position - are the sitz bones level “do they feel equal”?
Insert pelvic tilts movement here - what a great awareness exercise whilst sitting.
Trunk position - stacked head on rib on pelvis - a nod of the head, a tilt of the ribcage to find the sweet spot. Easy sitting.
Feet on the ground - connect with the 3 key points of contact, “knuckle of big toe” “knuckle of little toe” and “heel” - rock feet back and forth on the spot.
Always use movement to bring awareness to the body and most importantly the brain. Movement is the real reason brains exist. For more info what this TED talk on the brain and movement
And when standing at the desk - consider weight in the feet.
Awareness - is one side favoured? What's the percentage of weight in each foot? Front to back? Can it be evened out?
Move weight around from above to move into the 3 corners of your feet.
Connect with the 3 key points of contact, “knuckle of big toe” “knuckle of little toe” and “heel” - rock feet back and forth on the spot.
Oh and that lovely pelvic movement again - anterior / posterior tilt in standing. Can the legs remain straight? If the knees bend with every posterior tilt of the pelvis is there any movement occurring at the hip joint?
Sitting / standing Desk Exercises
APPI Matwork Level 1 - Spine twist (see video below) With the aim to mobilise the thoracic spine and retrain correct sitting posture, without shearing through the thoracolumbar junction.
APPI Matwork Level 2 - Mermaid in Standing. To mobilise the thoracic and lumbar spine and the gleno-humeral joint. To stretch the pectoralis muscle and the latissimus dorsi.
Also consider the nerves of the upper body and who better to share his wonderful and fun neural exercises than David Butler himself.
How would you devise a Pilates routine for your client? Of course considering their individual situation then focus on moving into less regularly visited positions.
Arms above head, Torso full ROM, Legs out straight.
Check out the unite health online Pilates classes for more inspiration and for doing your own practice.
Stress
Using our bodies to support our mind and vice versa is one of the intentions of Pilates.
Breathing is another.
Using the body and breath to get into a parasympathetic space (rest and digest rather than flight or flight - sympathetic) will support clients through this stressful time alongside meditation.
Oh to breathe.
PROPERLY.
Using the breathing muscle designed for … you guessed it BREATHING
Hello Diaphragm.
INHALE - diaphragm shortens and moves downwards, pelvic floor responds with reflex tone (imagine a balloon). TvA lengthens. Rib elevates.
EXHALE - diaphragm lengthens - TvA shortens - Rib depress.
If unable to exhale effectively - diaphragm not able to lengthen fully - rib is flared meaning:
- unable to depress / retract rib cage so will use neck muscles and and will have limited options to take pressure off a disc or inflamed nerve root.
- unable to nurture the parasympathetic system as rate of breathing impacted by CO2 levels controlled through effective exhale.
Fluoroscopic studies show the diaphragm shows signs of hypertonicity becoming flattened and immobile during situations of emotional stress,
Resulting in an inefficient length tension relationship and inefficient diaphragm function.
We get stressed. Our breathing changes. Our diaphragm changes. Our body adapts with restricted movement. We are unable to breath effectively. We get more stressed… and so it goes - a vicious cycle.
Using movement with breath allows full diaphragm range of motion and all the lovely benefits of breathing well.
A great Pilates exercise is APPI Spine Stretch (see video below) with nose breath - focusing on rib retraction and depression to allow for full diaphragm movement.
This is likewise a great postural exercise to restrack the spine. The roll down aspect segmentally mobilises the thoracic spine into flexion and on the roll up, segmentally extending to return.
Nose Breathing
Nose breathing with a pause between breaths and a longer exhale supports the diaphragm and nurtures the parasympathetic system.
Nose breathing is more efficient and allows for higher levels of arterial CO2 which reduces the breath rate and volume and uses the diaphragm rather than chest and shoulders.
This calmer breathing pattern feeds into the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) rather than the sympathetic nervous system.
Meditation
Breath work is part of meditation. Now more than ever is the time to put it into practice. Recommend or teach it to your clients and practice it yourself every. single. day.
The Great Outdoors with a dash of vitamin D
Getting outside is so important. Recommend Clients spend time outside throughout the day. Including a walk around the block.
Research has shown that a lack of vitamin D can be linked to chronic pain so even more of an excuse.
Exercise / Home Renovation
Use Pilates to warm up and wake up the body and the cool down to support the exercises / renovation efforts completed in the house.
Consider the best exercises for this.
Tapping into the endurance muscles to hold everything in place during the obligatory “flail”... “Dance like no-one is watching”. While the brain is the conductor of the fine tuned motor patterns and coordinated “flails”.
Increase range of motion of the joints and put muscles in optimum positions.
APPI Leg pull prone prep to invite the shoulders and torsi to work together and to wake up the deep abdominal and shoulder type II muscles. Add in APPI swimming level 3 to involve the lower limb
Hip flexor stretch with rib movements (see video below) - to increase the range to support high level exercise.
Here’s a Mini Program for the Home Athlete - office/exercise / reno
From APPI matwork levels 1 - 3:
- Toy soldier with walking
- Roll downs
- Swimming level 3
- Leg pull prone prep level 2
- One leg kick
- Arm openings
- Double leg stretch
- Shoulder bridge
- Roll ups
- Upper body rolls
- Mermaid in standing
You can add many regressions and progressions to this.
Matwork Level 3 brings in more advanced exercises and is well worth having on your Pilates tool belt.
Number One
Who's the most important person to take care of during all of this - YOU.
Are you continuing your self-care - body, brain and mind? Getting outdoors? Meditating? Self Pilates?
As a self-confessed, non-exerciser at home I’ve all of a sudden had to shift my mindset (because that's all it was - a mindset). I’m doing self-practice and online Pilates classes with my favourite practitioners around the world, at home and love the classes unite health are offering to complete in my own time. Albeit with little people clambering over me. Who knew my second calling was as a climbing frame. Prone prep is their favourite pilates move to clamber on.
With so many courses becoming online it's been a great time to upskill and keep my brain happy.
Matwork Pilates really is the way to go.
Great news, the wonderful team at Unite health has worked tirelessly to ensure the matwork pilates course is available online and is to the high standard that they are used to delivering.
I’m successfully running Pilates treatments and online Pilates classes using the skills I learnt through the matwork APPI series. More on that next time.
There is a lot to feel grateful for right now.
Sending you all much love.
About the author:
Eva is a Physio and Presenter for APPI. She is obsessed with human movement. When she isn't learning, teaching or seeing clients, she is riding her bicycle or going on adventures with her kids, pooch and husband.
You can find her at @havemovement on Instagram
References / Resources.
APPI Matwork Level 1-3
J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2012 Apr;42(4):352-62. doi: 10.2519/jospt.2012.3830. Epub 2011 Dec 21.Postural function of the diaphragm in persons with and without chronic low back pain.
Kolar P1, Sulc J, Kyncl M, Sanda J, Cakrt O, Andel R, Kumagai K, Kobesova A.The functions of breathing and its dysfunctions and their relationship to breathing therapy
Is there a role for vitamin D in the treatment of chronic pain? Kathryn R. Martin and David M. Reid