Read this book especially if you are a teacher or client w. back issues.

You might know of Blandine’s other book,  Anatomy of Movement.  This is a brilliant book that finally addresses the poor training of abs and the possible effects of this training.  The “crunch” is poor use of the abs especially when the abs are used incorrectly and is compressing the disks.  A lot of clients know how to harden the abs and destroy the length of the spine.  Here is a book that addresses the whys and hows to correct training.

Great points of the book

• Alternately stretch and strengthen abs
• Coordinate w. breath
• Risks to the pelvic floor, disks and wall

The plank pose is one of the best exercises for core.  Why?  It is a full body action that requires coordination of the limbs with the torso.  When your form is good, you maximize your use of the core.  It also requires the body knowledge of how to use your legs to be in hip extension, your torso in neutral and great hand-scapula connection.  If any of these patterns are off, it could create shoulder/hand and/or back problems.

How Planking Became the Internet’s Latest Bored Game

Facebook’s Plank Craze

Breathing Question
Hi Lesley,

I have a question about breathing in Pilates. I have found in my teaching that many students breath ‘loud’ and seem to associate a loud breath with a deep breath. But I don’t find that to be the case in my own breathing and in observing clients. It seems to me that the noise in their breathing can be coming from some sort of tightening of the throat, mouth, lips etc. So when I hear this I usually cue them to relax their breath, throat, mouth and visual a deep quiet breath that is connected to their abdominals. Often then I see better sinking of the abdominals and an overall relaxation of tensed muscles. Would love to know what you think or have seen with clients.

Thanks!
Dana

There are many ways of breathing.  Sometimes sound can tell you about the quality of breath.  A shallow breath will be more in the throat.  A deep breath brings a different resonance.  That is what actors and singers try to achieve.  Sometimes sound can get a client aware of breath.  For others, breath can create tension in trying to achieve it and not feel it.  In traditional Pilates there is a forceful breath which is great for fast forceful movements.  Look at Karate and there is a clear reason to make the holler with a kick.  It mobilizes your strengthen.

With the new information about how the diaphragm and the pelvic floor,  my practice with myself and clients, is a much slower and softer breath.  To get to the deep transverse abdominals, I sometimes have clients count out loud on the exhale to a least 8 and the goal is more.  I hear how they phrase the breath.  Is graceful like an adagio or punchy like a march?  I find a fast punchy breath that most clients harden the superficial abs without getting the hollowing of the transverse.

I always use Breath especially in the beginning of a session.  I find that it centers clients to better concentration and better use of abs.  With some client whose breath patterns are poor, I might move away from breath.  I once took some classes on breath, the Middendorf Technique.   There were exercises of breath to improve breath; then movements to improve how one breathes.

Kathy Grant at a PMA conference had people spell out their names or telephone numbers to make sure that they are breathing. In yoga, you have the “OM”.  Irmagard Bartenieff had used the vowel sounds to get people conscious of breath.  Different sounds, letters and words invite different kinds of breath.

The best breath is laughter.

Doris Pasteleur Hall teaching in 2010

Doris Pasteleur Hall teaching

Biography of her working with Carola Trier

Deepening Your Pilates Practice- Pilates Mat for Teachers
with Doris Pasteleur Hall Sunday 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM $30 single
Dates: Sun 1/17 MAT with Foam Roller, 2/7, 3/7

This is a mat class for Pilate teachers only. It is about motivating ourselves as teachers to challenge our quality of movement. This will be a Pilates mat class with props. The series structure is designed to encourage one’s personal growth with the Pilates mat.

PILATES EQUIPMENT CLASS FOR TEACHERS
3 Minimum- 6 Maximum to sign up with with Doris Pasteleur Hall
Dates: Sun Jan 17th, Feb 7th and March 7th Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM $45

This is a special class for Pilates Teachers.

HOW TO GET TO BOOMERANG with Doris Pasteleur Hall
Dates: Sun 2/28/2010 Time: 1:45 PM – 4:45 PM $100.00

Problem solving, teaching and executing the advanced exercise Boomerang is a fun challenge. Will use beginner to intermediate exercises as tools to properly progress to Boomerang. Discover the connections that create support for this high-level exercise and utilize them in problem solving other advanced movements. Please bring to the sessions, any questions concerning Boomerang.

To register

Newcomers to Pilates sometimes get stuck on the idea that a hard muscle is a functional muscle.  A lot of people are hardening their muscles that is destroying correct movement of the body.

As you advance in your practice, Pilates repertory has more sequencing of movement and level changes.  This teaches you to have dynamic stabilization of your body.  What I have to stabilize changes as I move in Space.

We all have to start with basics.  Even I perform the below exercise as a warmup.  It helps me waken up my lower abdominals before I go to more advanced exercises.

Differentiation of thigh bone

Your goal is to maintain the hollow when you lift a leg up.  This is the underlying concept in all Pilates exercises.

I just got the manual for this upcoming course.  I went over the material and already teaching in classes.  Wow,  new ideas and moves brings about new connections to your body.

Some of my clients, who have been with me awhile, made incredible changes with this material.  To get clients to experience the deeper core muscles is a foreign concept for some.  This material will up the ante for all!!

Balanced Body’s Pilates

Cost: $149.00 per course

Please join us for our third ‘On the Road’ program

Learn how to use a variety of small props in your Pilates Mat classes with this four part workshop including the foam roller, resistance bands, rings and small balls. New moves, new choreography and a lot of fun will be had as you learn how to play with your new toys! Choreography, prop safety and creativity will be covered.

BBU – Rolling for Length, Rolling for Strength 9/11/2009

Friday 5:00pm to 8:00pm The Foam Roller, originally designed as packing material will have you packing your classes with moves that lengthen, strengthen and feel great. For a challenge, offer a great Reformer on the Mat class and if you want to make your clients feel good, learn how to sequence a self massage program to speed up recovery. Th

Just yesterday at Movements Afoot, a client complained about not working her abs hard enough in a Pilates class.  Pilates is alway about the core and it coordination with the limbs.  Most clients are not working correctly.

Decades ago, I was the movement trainer at a high-end club.  Clients would come to me after their sessions for stretching or to help with an injury.  A man came to me about his back.

I had just observed him doing a hundred crunches.
His form was terrible with his cranking his head to perform the crunch,
bulging his belly out and activating his hip flexors.

I asked him to pull up his abdominals in standing to improve his posture.
He DiDn’t have a clue how!

As teachers, we all know how important training the transverse abdominals.  To get to them, they are never going to feel like the physicality of a bicep curl.

So what do we teachers do?

Keep teaching what we teach.  Make sure in the lesson you include something that requires more endurance like the hundred.
Keep emphazing

” Are your abs hollowing or bulging? “

” How’s your hip flexors?”

“Are you breathing?”

“Come a little higher in the hundred (or whatever you do)?

Kathy Grant at the PMA conference had us to a rollup that took about 5 minutes.  She would allow no momentum to get up.

So teachers in this hard times of recession and needing to keep clients.

Hold the poses a little longer.

Give a little burn at the same time make them aware of their form.

Send them home to practice.  Go to our podcasts to deepen their use of the transverse.

As Doris Pasteleur Hall says, “Abdominals comes in different flavors”

Give them a little of the flavor that they are used to and introduce the others.

PILATES PRINCIPLES
The coordination of the stability of the torso with the movement of the legs and/or arms is essential for good function.  This is deep core work. Stability is a dynamic coordination of the muscles of the torso and entire body depending what the movement is.  It is not a static position, but changing as we move in space.

We first need to learn how to apply core stability to simple movements before more complex movements.  These are building blocks of foundations for larger, more complex movements.

The thigh lift (Bartenieff Fundamental(tm)) is the precursor to more difficult abdominal exercises as well as a component of our walking. One must stabilize the pelvis to connect to the correct mobility of the femur.  The psoas alone will flex the hip.  Without the counterbalance of the abdominals, the pelvis is pulled to an anterior tilt.   Remember stabilization is about finding quietness in the spine with length as you mobilize the legs. This should be the major underlying principle of all abdominal exercises.  To challenge the abdominals more, one can extend and/or lower the legs away from the torso.  This is the single leg stretch, the hundred, etc.

THIGH LIFT

Hollowing the Abdominal

Purpose
To learn how to stabilize the pelvis as you lift a leg.   This principle is important in all Pilates mat exercises with the use of the legs.  The engagement of the core is essential in stability of the pelvis through the deep abdominals.

To start

1. Lie on the back with parallel legs bent and feet on the floor. The spine is in neutral.  Place the hands on the femoral folds.  This is where the hinge of the thigh and the hip
2. Inhale and feel the width of the sacrum and back ribcage.
3. Exhale and hollow.

The movement

Thigh Lift

1. Inhale and breathe wide into the back body.
2. Exhale to deflate the abdominals in and lift the bent right leg.  The hands are feeling the softening of the femoral fold.
3. Inhale and lower the right thigh back to its original position.
4. Exhale with a hollow and lift the bent left thigh up to 90 degrees.  The pelvis should remain in neutral.
5. Repeat 3 more sets

Observation
Was the pelvis quiet during the thigh lift?  Did the hollow deepen as you lifted the leg?  Or did the belly bulge out? If the back muscles engaged, you must learn to deepen the hollow and maintain it before and during the leg lift.

Double leg.

1. Inhale and feel the width and depth of the back body.
2. Exhale; hollow and do a right thigh lift
3. Inhale and hold the position
4. Exhale, hollow and lift the left bent leg next to the right thigh
5. Inhale without losing the hollow and lower the right leg down
6. Exhale and lower the left leg
7. Inhale and deepen the length and width of the spine
8. Repeat again starting with the left leg

Observation
Were you able to maintain the hollow throughout the movement?  Did your pelvis remain quiet?

Breath is the key to connecting to the deep abdominal muscles.  With breath,  the connections of the diaphragm pumping in and out of air forces the transverse abdominal  to be like a corset.   Being like a corset, this muscle pulls the torso contents in.  The pulling in of the abdominals like a corset, we are going to call, the hollow.  This  is when the transverse abdominus engages.   This corset-like muscle is responsible for flattening the abdominal wall and stabilizing the torso.

Breath is one of the best ways to encourage this action.  There are physical connections between the diaphragm and the transverse abdominus.  The breath is like a hydraulic pump. Inhalation causes the diaphragm to move downward, open the lower ribs and relaxation of the back.  Exhalation releases the diaphragm up like a parachute towards your head.  The lift of the diaphragm helps the lower abs engage.  Consciousness of breath and it’s being three-dimensional is a great way to open the spine and connect to our internal support.

To Start: Lie on the back with knees bent and feet on the floor.

Hollowing

Breath & the diaphragm

1. Inhale into the lower ribs.  Visualize the diaphragm floating downward.  This downward movement is widening the lower torso with depth in the back
2. Count the duration of the exhale as the belly deflates.  (Start with 8 counts.  Each count the belly should sink deeper towards the sacrum.  This is the hollow.
3. Repeat two more sets

Breath & the Hollow
Place your hands near your navel

1. Inhale for 4 counts
2. Exhale (8 counts) and narrow your abdominals underneath your hands towards your navel
3. Inhale
4. Exhale (8 counts), narrow again underneath your hands
5. Adding on, inhale
6. Exhale (8 counts), narrow and sink your abs towards your sacrum
7. Inhale
8. Exhale and feel your abs narrow and sink towards your navel
9. Inhale and add on
10. Exhale (8 counts) narrow, sink and rise your abs up your torso.
11. Inhale
12. Exhale, feel your abs under your hands narrow, sink and lift towards your head.

Now practice this in different position, sitting, on all fours, standing and in your pilates practice.  Hollowing is essential for making change in your core. It is better to do a few exercises with hollowing than lots of repetitions with the abs bulging out.  Practicing poor habits does not make you stronger.

* I would like to thank all of my teachers especially Irene Dowd for deepening my knowlegde about the body.

I have been talking with some of my teachers who are also singers.  Amongst some singing teachers, pilates is not recommended.  A lot has to do with past training about locking the ribs down to solve the problem of hyperextended ribs.

The great change in Pilates and knowledge about the body is the importance of the movement of the diaphragm.  As in our past post, we talked about how the diaphragm moves 3 dimensionally within our torso in a healthy person.  There is a real inter-relationship between the diaphragm, the pelvic floor and the transverse abdominus.

Using sound is a great way to get in touch with the breath and discover the quality of your breathing.  Many systems like Yoga’s OM inspire the deep breathing necessary for core support and freedom of the spine.  Irmgard Bartenieff used our Western vowels, a,e,i, o, u, to get students conscious of their breath.

At the PMA conference this November, Kathy Grant had us do roll downs reciting our full names, addresesses with phone numbers and then whistling.  By having your clients speak as they move, will force them to breath.  You can not talk and not breath.

Using sound is a great way for students to become aware of their breath.  Deep breathing will create a sound with resonance.   Poor breathing makes the sound strained and coming from tension of mouth and throat.

When the breath is not moving 3 dimensionally, you will see sometimes the client moving the spine with breath. Usually the pattern is they hyperextend the ribs on the inhale and compress the ribs down on the exhale.

One of my favorite images of breath is from the Franklin Method.  See the breath spiral down to the pelvic floor on the inhale and spiral up on the exhale.  Think of the breath going up and down like a spiral staircase or spiral straw.

The cue in dance and Pilates, that closes the ribs, does not connect us to our deep core muscles.  In many ways, that cue creates more problems in the organization of the spine and shoulders especially in standing.  Finding full breath in all positions; supine, prone, quadriped, sitting and standing, will enhance how you use your core muscles.