About Clinical Pilates

Clinical Pilates is modified Pilates for rehabilitation. At Breathe, we specialise in helping people living or working in Melbourne city CBD, with spinal injuries and conditions including disc bulge, disc herniation, disc prolapse, spondylolisthesis, stenosis, scoliosis, osteoarthritis, vertebral end-plate fractures and pelvic fractures. If you suffer from back, shoulder or neck pain, Breathe Clinical Pilates can help you reduce your pain and increase your ability to function effectively and comfortably. We can help you get back to doing the things you want to do, whether that be sports, running, gardening, riding or just putting on your shoes without pain.

Through Clinical Pilates rehabilitation we will help you learn to move more fluidly and safely, with less strain, less pain and more strength. We'll teach you how to correctly strengthen your core, whilst keeping you safe. We'll help you to improve your flexibility and balance, so that your body works the way it is meant to; easily and well.

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The Breathe Approach to rehabilitating spinal injuries

At our Melbourne CBD studio, we use a 3-fold, evidence-based strategy for spinal injury rehabilitation with Clinical Pilates. We will work with you to improve your posture, teach you self muscle-release techniques and develop a program of core strengthening, stability exercises to effectively support your back.

1. Postural improvement

Your posture has a dramatic and profound effect on how your spine is loaded. Spinal injuries almost always benefit from postural fine-tuning, and we'll teach you how to stand and sit with ideal posture, so stress on your injury is minimised. One aspect of ideal posture is correct activation of your postural muscles, and we'll help you with this also, to help you to stand, sit and move in a manner that supports your injury, and spreads load through your system in a balanced, supported and controlled way.

2. Self muscle-release techniques

We understand that living in constant pain, or even constant fear of pain, is not fun! We'll teach you self muscle-release techniques including stretching, Trigger Point release, breathing techniques and visualisation to give you the skills to reduce tension and dissolve your pain yourself. Learn to "nip your pain in the bud" and avoid the upward spiral of tension and discomfort. Balance your system by releasing tight areas, safely and gently.

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3. Improving motor activation patterns and core strengthening

One thing that is very common with spinal injuries, is poor muscle activation patterns (aka motor activation patterns). When your motor activation is not ideal, your muscles don't switch on in the right sequence, or in the right proportion; so you may have some muscles over-active, and others not active enough, and thus imbalance, compensation and increased strain to your system.

We'll design a program of exercises specifically for you to improve your motor activation patterns (You'll learn to use the most effective combination of muscles to perform a given movement, especially the movements that have been causing you pain and aggravation). We'll help you safely strengthen your core and all your stabiliser muscles, and make sure your muscular system is in balance, giving you even support through your spine throughout each movement, and as you sit and stand.

Movements that commonly cause aggravation for people with lower back injuries include:

• Getting out of bed

• Putting on shoes, socks or pantyhose

• Standing or sitting for long periods

• Driving, and getting in and out of the car

• Gardening

• Running

• Cycling

• Sneezing

• Picking even very light things up off the floor

Through improved posture and correct motor activation, we can show you have to do the specific things that are causing you pain, in such a way that there is minimal load on your spine, so you'll feel more comfortable again. We will give you practical, simple and precisely targeted exercises to improve the way your body works, and allow your injury to heal, so you can live like a normal person again! For therapists, and those with a technical bent, you can look over our Clinical Pilates Rehabilitation Guidelines on the "info for Therapists" page.

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Safety

When you have a spinal injury, you need to strengthen your core and increase your ability to stabilise the injured joint(s). To do this you need to exercise the muscles that are responsible for stabilising your injured area. In doing this, you need to be extremely careful not to overstrain or damage your already injured and thus weakened system. There is a fine line to traverse between improvement and overdoing things. For this reason it's critical to begin with a diagnosis from a specialist such as a phsyiotherapist, osteopath, chiropractor or orthopaedic surgeon, preferably from an MRI or CT scan.

It's important to use the right exercises for your particular body, and your particular injury. We'll consult with your diagnosing specialist to develop a program of exercises that will safely strengthen your body whilst minimising compression and shearing loads on your spine. You'll have strong abs, alright, but not a sit up in sight!

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