Meet John.
John (60 y.o) has been working with me since 2017, when I was his teacher at a local Pilates studio. John has always been active. In his younger years he did a lot of long distance running, and when he started Pilates he was also doing group PT classes including weights and cardio circuits.
John also has a desk job. He has worked for over 40 years at a desk and it was taking its toll on his posture and mobility, resulting in stiffness and general aches and pains.
Enter Pilates!
John quickly started seeing results in his range of motion. His flexibility increased and the stiffness was easing off. However, his posture still needed a lot of work! 40 plus years of sitting at a desk presents itself as a rounded upper back, tight chest and shoulders, a head that sits forward of your shoulders, tight hamstrings - they’re just the main culprits! So although things were starting to improve, his kyphotic spine and decentrated joints meant that most of his patterns of movement had inefficiencies, so when he would add load or speed (like in his group PT classes), he was putting himself at risk at working beyond his functional threshold aka pain and injuries. One day during his PT class, he suffered a prolapsed disc at the L4/5 area of his spine. Anyone who has suffered a prolapsed disc (and they are fairly common) knows the persistent pain this can cause. For John, the pain is not only in his back, but down his leg too. Frustrating as hell! Particularly, because it means pulling back on the ‘usual’ type of movement choices you may have been previously doing as they can cause compression and aggravation of the prolapsed disc.
So after the acute stage of this injury, where he spoke to many doctors, surgeons, physios and the like, he was eventually given the all clear to return to Pilates (and encouraged to do so too!) I continued to work with John on a modified basis through the next stages of the injury management. From time to time he would have flare ups, sometimes worse than others. And often it felt very disheartening for him to take one step forward and what felt like 7 steps back.
Enter DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilisation)
During the first lockdown I discovered the power of DNS. As I started seeing incredible results in my own body and learning more and more about the stabilisation principles of this method, I beganto share what I knew with my clients. At the beginning of 2023 I started my DNS Teacher Training. This is when I properly started to integrate the method into my own Pilates mastery and into all my clients’ classes.
This is when John’s recovery and injury management was truly impacted for the better. In a nutshell, DNS is a methodology based off developmental kinesiology. That just means, if we are healthy babies, we will learn the correct physiological motor patterns to support being vertical (all humans innately learn how to upright themselve). During our early development, the Central Nervous System communicates with our musculoskeletal system to ensure we have correct muscle function which leads to optimal structural maturation of our bones and joints.
The other key element to the DNS methodology and what I believe to be the reason John’s back has responded so well to applying the practice of DNS is because of the stabilisation principles. The physiological way to stabilise our spine is through IAP (intra abdominal pressure), it is not through engaging one particular muscle or a group of muscles. We create balanced and regulated intraabdominal pressure through neuromuscular coordination of the diaphragm, pelvic floor, all muscles of the abdominal wall and the intersegmental spinal extensors. Basically, IAP comes down to how we breathe! We need to relearn (because we all did it already as babies to verticalise ourselves) how to optimally use the postural function of the diaphragm- this is what increases our stability and this is what will help to alleviate disc problems and therefore decrease pain.
At one stage, surgery was a real possibility for John. He spoke to three surgeons about what was involved, what it might mean for his future, his recovery etc. It was a serious consideration in the next steps of his disc prolapse journey. You see, John’s goal was to fly to Europe and holiday in Italy, but being on the plane for that long meant that that simply was not possible unless he wanted to be in excruciating pain the whole time (sitting for an extended period of time compresses the discs in the spine and makes the problem worse). Hence, the exploration into surgery. He wanted his life back!
But here I am, almost in happy tears of pride and privilege that I got to say goodbye to John last week after our last class together for a month, because he got a plane! Yep, he’s doing it. Flying to Europe, without surgery, just the DNS tools in his toolbelt.
John is so dedicated to his practice and his recovery, I see him every week, twice a week and I have given John a list of DNS exercises and stretches to continue to do on his hotel floor when he is away.
Yes he sometimes does too much or tweaks the discs in a way that is not desirable and his pain down his leg will rear its ugly head, but instead of it feeling like 1 step forward and 7 steps back, it’s more like 1 step forward and 1 step back. Unfortunately, this is the nature of an injury like this- it sticks with you for the rest of your life, so it will, from time to time, remind you it’s there. Fortunately though, John has DNS and Pilates- literally the secret to his success in staying away from back surgery.
And it’s not just John who has had such success with his back injuries and DNS. Roman, a 45 year old mountain climber suffered debilitating disc herniation, to the point where he had to be driven to his first DNS class so he could lie flat along the back seats. He started private classes 3 times a week , then after a month was able to join the group DNS classes on offer, after 3 months he was able to climb mountains again. Pretty impressive stuff. Check him out below!