How Pilates can Improve your posture

For many of us, our place of work does not provide us with an environment that is great for our posture. If you are an office worker adopting an un-ergonomic position could leave you with issues down the line whilst many manual workers face injuries in their career.

Regular Pilates-based exercise has a number of recorded benefits that could help you maintain your posture and overall wellbeing.

Helps Stretch and Strengthen the Spine

There are certain Pilates movements that could seriously help strengthen your spine. Any of the positions like the cat cow and the chest lift will put your body into some unnatural positions. This will strengthen your vertebrae and make it easier for you to maintain good posture.

Aids Joint Mobility

If you are someone who sometimes suffers from acute joint pain, there are certain exercises in Pilates that if practised with care could help minimise your discomfort.

Helps Increase the awareness of your posture

One of the main reasons people take up Pilates is to help with their posture; they are unaware of the wider benefits to be enjoyed from taking part in classes! Practising Pilates and learning about how it helps your body will usually make you more aware of your daily posture and how to make sure it is correct.

The roll-up is one of the most widely known Pilates moves. However, it should only be attempted if you are already fairly flexible.

To perform, lie flat on your back with arms upright and lift yourself up before rolling forward as far as is reasonably comfortable. This will help to strengthen your lower back and stretch out the whole spine.

The benefits of this exercise are numerous; you get to improve your overall back strength and your abdominal muscles. If you improve both of these areas of your body you will be on your way to better overall posture.

Practice at Home and in Classes

Whilst Pilates is great at improving posture it is only one of the ways you can use it to make your body healthier. You can learn more about how it helps your body at local classes and can always get in touch with us with any further questions.