Abstract
Purpose: “Pilates” is known to be a gentle technique of strength training with an emphasis on the deep trunk muscle layers. Positive influences on spinal form parameters are assumed. Methods: Spinal form parameters of 24 female volunteers (10 Pilates / 14 controls) were measured before and after a definite Pilates program (12 units, 60 minutes each, once a week) by means of video raster stereography (Formetric®-system), and analyzed using 2-way ANOVA. Results: We found significant (p<0.05) spine shape changes in the form of spinal erection (decreasing thoracic angle, increasing spinal length) after Pilates-based training exercises. Conclusions: We consider the controlled spinal shape adaptations – apparent in an erection of spinal alignment in the sagittal plane – to be valid and specifically exercise-induced, supporting a basic idea of the Pilates training concept.
Highlights
Spinal alignment was identified as one risk factor for the incidence of low back pain and may be affected negatively, due to occupational recommendations – like sitting time, or office work load [1]
Every Pilates exercise starts with a minor hollowing manoeuvre – marked by drawing in the belly button – which leads to an activation of the transversus abdominis
Subjects To make sure that probable intervention effects were resulting from the specific Pilates training mode, only experienced participants were allowed to be included into the exercise group (PILATES). 10 females – all of them having been practicing Pilates for more than 2 years and being able to perform the correct co-contraction patterns of the ‘Power House’ – could be recruited as volunteers for a pre-post analysis in a 12-week observation period. 14 athletically active females
Summary
Spinal alignment was identified as one risk factor for the incidence of low back pain and may be affected negatively, due to occupational recommendations – like sitting time, or office work load [1]. This study was focussing on Pilates training and its role for spinal alignment in a non-patient sample. Pilates is a strengthening training method characterized by special motor control and movement patterns as well as by definite breathing techniques. Co-contraction patterns of deep trunk muscle layers – involving the transversus abdominis as well as the internal and the external oblique abdominals are of special interest for Pilates’s movement pattern instructions. Every Pilates exercise starts with a minor hollowing manoeuvre – marked by drawing in the belly button – which leads to an activation of the transversus abdominis. The resulting core tension has to be held during all the following phases of the exercise movements [4]
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