Why the principles of Pilates will make your life better.

I’ve just spent the first part of this year taking all my clients through the 6 principles of Pilates.

One principle a week for 6 weeks. 

Instead of using a body part or a prop as a point of focus for the class, it was a principle. 

And it was great (yep, I do say so myself!)

When I first started Pilates, the principles were an arbitrary thing for me. Principles, sminciples.

This is what I was concerned with- ‘I’ll go home and do 50 reps of this stomach series thing I learnt in class today’ or  ‘Who cares about how I breathe, as long as I’m working on my 6 pack’.

Oh no, 25 year old me was not vain or shallow at all, haha! 

The 6 principles are:

1) Breath

2) Precision 

3) Centering 

4) Control 

5) Concentration

6) Flow

Why do they matter?

Let me explain:

1) Breath- literally the reason we live and exist. But do you live and exist to your fullest? 

Yes breathing is autonomous- thank goodness. But that doesn’t mean we are all doing it in the best way possible. 

The breath is so powerful. It is a direct pathway to our para-sympathetic nervous system. The system that can make us calm the F down. Now, I don’t know about you, but calming the F down is a great skill to work on when you have kids, a job, a husband/wife, a house, family, pets, a conscience.

Couple a calmed nervous system with a boost of endorphins that you get from moving your body around, and hello happiness. That’s why exercise is addictive, it makes you happy from the inside out. It keeps you sane. And if you can learn to breath properly through exercise to get the most out of it, it will give you clarity, the ability to concentrate more, to relief stress and manage pain.

Breathing also heals. Big, full, proper, expansive breaths will send oxygenated blood all around the body. That blood will fill up and filter through all the little nooks and crannies around the body (technical Pilates term ‘nooks and crannies’) And blood heals. Fresh, oxygenated, clean blood aids in healing muscles tears, dysfunctional joints and maximising performance. 

2) Precision- Jospeh Pilates was a bit of a stickler for form. And rightfully so in most cases I think. Ultimately, good form and precision of movement/ body placement has the power to change bad habits! Bad habits with our form and posture that creep in over a lifetime and can end up causing so much alignment problems, that people live with all sorts of pain that they don’t even have to be living with. 

Precision is about learning to initiate movements from the right part of your body and with the appropriate effort.

For example, we don’t walk around on the balls of our feet all day long, it would cause some muscles in the feet and legs to over work and other muscles to under work. As you can imagine this would cause all sorts of muscles imbalances, and then under any load or endurance, this could make things very painful.

Pilates teaches you how to stand correctly on your feet, sit correctly, lie correctly, you will learn about foot placement and foot effort through every exercise, so that the precision you learn in the studio or class can translate into the form you use in the real world.

Once you have precision you have quality movement. That’s why in Pilates you don’t need to do 100 reps of anything. Quality over quantity every time! 

3) Centering- Your centre in Pilates is not just your 6 pack (although 25 year old me sure as hell thought  it was).

In Pilates, your Centre is also referred to as your Powerhouse. Your Powerhouse is all the muscles from your ribs to your hips in the front, in the back and around the sides- think of them like a girdle of muscles that we want to strengthen to help stabilise your spine and pelvis. Then, we definitely can not forget about the booty muscles- they are part of the Powerhouse too. Lesley Logan has famously called this region your Tharse, where your thighs meet your arse! 

In Pilates, the premise is that we work from the centre first, this is where we draw our strength and stability from, then we work our extremities (arms and legs) from a strong and table place.

I love how all the muscles are invited to a Pilates Party! The host of this Pilates party is the Powerhouse, but they are very friendly hosts and invite the whole neighbourhood (body) along, but not before the hosts have a strong and stable environment to invite all those guests in. Nothing worse than inviting people into a house and the the ground falls out from under you! Those guests would not come back! 

4) Control- Before Pilates was called Pilates, it was called Contrology. It was’t until after Joseph Pilates died in 1967 that it was named after his namesake. 

I think once you know this, it’s clear to see just how much importance Joseph put on being able to have control over the body. 

And I think it becomes clearer as we get older, if you live a sedentary life and overall poor health choices, your body starts to be in control of you. Whether that be, illnesses, ailments, injuries, these things start to dictate our life and the choices we make. No longer do we choose to partake in life as much, because sadly, it hurts. 

So when I think of control, I think of putting yourself back in control of your body. You are in the driver’s seat. Wouldn’t it be nice to make decisions based on what brings you joy and happiness and not because you are worried your back will play up or your knee will hurt?

One of Joseph Pilates’ students said ‘Pilates is stretch and strength with control- control is what is most important because it uses your mind’. When you can exercise control over your mind, you can execute exact movement in the body. And it’s that exact movement (hello precision- see principle 2 above) that will change bad habits, poor alignment, build strength and increase mobility.

5) Concentration- There is a fun little imagery exercise that I like to do with my clients when we focus on this principle. It’s called the Lemon Imagery Exercise. I highly recommend you get someone to read it to you while you take a comfy seat or lie down on the floor. It’s a little different but it highlights just how powerful the mind is on the physical body. 

Look, if you have ever done Pilates and you are thinking of how much washing you have to do when you get home or what you’re going to cook for dinner later that day, then you’ll know that basically, you’ve got no chance at it. You need to be focused. You need to be present and in the moment. When you can focus your attention to the exercise at hand or what the teacher is trying to get you to do, you have a better chance at being successful in the movement. 

The benefits of being mindful and participating in mindful movement are huge, not only can we reduce stress (see principle 1 above), but we can also reduce blood pressure and manage pain better. 

When we are concentrating and focusing our attention towards getting the right muscle engagement, then you learn to feel the muscles, you learn what it feels like when a muscle (or a group of muscles) is engaged.  Therefore, your body awareness will increase and you can translate that into more mindful movement in every day life, like how you sit at your desk all day long. You’ll start to be more efficient with your posture and how you hold yourself in everyday tasks, from driving and washing dishes, to cycling and running.

6) Flow- In 1925 Joseph Pilates moved from England to New York. He set up his first American studio under the New York Ballet school, you could say that some of his exercises were executed with the influence of helping an injured ballet dancer recover to full strength, poise and grace. And what a beautiful thing. If you’re a ballet dancer. But most of us are not ballet dancers. So being able to flow like a ballet dancer and being able to flow like a regular human being are two different things. 

To me, getting my clients to move with ease in the class means they have a better chance of being able to move with ease in the real world. How we move into and out of exercises (the transitions) becomes a focus point when we are trying to find more ease and flow in movement.

When you ride a busy tram (or a bus or some other public transport), it’s not just how you stand up in the vehicle eg, standing up with your powerhouse switched on (see principle 3 above) in preparation to withstand any bumpy rides. It’s how you get up off the seat at the tram/bus/train stop- do you need to hold onto something? It’s how you get up the giant steps of the tram/bus/train- do you trip up them or over your own feet? It’s how you hold your backpack or satchel over your shoulder- do you off load the one sided weight through hip hiking? All these other ‘transitional’ movements get you onto the tram, but are they the movements causing you more trouble than the movement of riding the tram itself?! 

I hope I have helped to highlight just how important Pilates Principles are, not just for a good Pilates class, but for everyday life! 

Come and experience how I turn these principles into exercises, reach out to me here to enquire about how we can get Pilates in your life!

Prop-Er Pilates: to prop or not to prop?

Pilates is a vast beast. 

Some people have been doing it for years and have only experienced one of the 20 reformers that they get to lie down on at their local KX. Some people have been doing Mat Pilates for ever and yet still haven’t heard of Reformers, Cadillacs and Electric Chairs and take one look at them and think ‘oh my goodness, what is this sex slavery dungeon I have just walked into’? 

50 Shades of Grey much?

Both Mat and equipment Pilates can be equally challenging, yet equally restorative and they both provide a whole-body workout. They can both help you work on poor muscle patterns, improve posture, reduce pain points and the potential for injury. 

Sometimes, some people, need a little extra guidance on the Mat work. Guidance in this instance could mean a few things…. such as, support, reducing challenge, increasing challenge, awareness of the body in space or creativity to keep things fresh.   

The Pilates chiball (or overball). But am I working hard or hardly working?

This guidance comes in many forms and we call them props, Pilates props. 

Here is a list of a just some that I include in my sessions:

-pillow

-broomstick

-fitball/swissball

-foam roller

-chiball/overball

-theraband 

-handweights

-spinecorrector 

-toecorrector 

-tennisballs

-towels

-the wall

-spikeyballs

…and…

-the kitchen bench (for reals! it feels so good, you can check it out here)

The biggest consideration when deciding what and how to use a prop is… what does the body in front of me need? What can I see in this body that is speaking to me and what does the client tell me they feel like that day/week… Tight? Tired? Overworked? Stressed? Creaky? Stiff? Excitable? Pumped? Sore? In pain? If they are more up beat, then perhaps a challenge is calling there name today, if not, then perhaps the class might need to be more modified and restorative. This is all just information gathering for what prop will illicit the best response in their body.

Next question, am I trying to mimic an exercise from the studio (ie, does the exercise come from the equipment) or is the thing I want them to do an exercise that is unrelated to mimicking anything from the equipment. Sometimes there is a time and place for both. 

Here’s an example: Client A wants to walk further and faster without hip pain? They go walking with a social group on the weekend and have lattes and chats afterwards. So it’s not only important that they can rely on their body to get them through this without stopping and without pain, but it’s also important for a sense of connection and mental wellbeing that they get after this experience with friends on the weekend. Although they don’t mention it, I can see that their desk job is giving them a slightly stooped posture with their shoulders rolling in and down. This is not bothering the client as much as the hip right now, but over time poor muscle patterning will bring about uncomfortable ramifications in the form of tight muscles, painful joints, potential for injury. 

In Pilates we never work the body in seperate parts or in isolation from other parts. Sure you might be lifting one leg up and down a bunch of times, but what are your shoulders doing, what about your toes and fingers? It may seem random to mention your finger in a leg lift, but that finger is connected to your arm and your arm is connected to your shoulder and your shoulder is connected to the powerhouse (your centre in Pilates). And now all of a sudden it’s more obvious how that stooped desk posture that is rolling your shoulders in, is impacting what we’re trying to do with the rest of the body. 

Most clients will say they love staring the class this way!

I might start with the foam roller. There are some great shoulder and upper back release exercises that can be done on the foam roller. Let’s try and minimise the impact those tight shoulders and upper back has on the rest of the body, for the rest of the session. Likely this person will need a thin pillow under their head to alleviate the impact those tight shoulders has on the neck strain and upper back.

Next, let’s get into the Mat work, traditionally it starts with the exercise called The 100’s, which is about warming up the whole body. It’s also about finding and connecting to the centre before introducing other limb work or more challenging shapes from the spine later on in class. Once we know where and how to work from the centre, we can carry that with us throughout the rest of the session. But if client A is not ready for such a challenging start, such as The 100’s, there are plenty of other abdominal variations to explore. 

See how my head is now stacked over my shoulders, this bring the work into the abs without the neck straining.

I particularly love the chi-ball/overball under the spine to leverage clients chest and head up over their breastbone when doing abdominal work. It really takes the whole straining neck thing out of the equation. And man is it a burner on the abs! 

I usually stick more or less to the first 7 exercises of the classical Mat work repertoire, sometimes with props, sometimes without, again it depends on the client and their needs. But those first 7 exercises are a great base to build off. Mastering the basics will always set you up for success.

Because client A is a keen walker, we need to work on their leg /hip/glute strength. When we walk, we need power from our legs to propel forward. So one option is to practice the traditional Leg Spring exercises that usually happens on the Cadillac in a studio with springs attached to the upright poles. However, at home, with props, I use the theraband attached to a door stopper at one end and loops attached at the other end.

Hey presto… Cadillac at home! 

We might finish off at The Wall for a series of hip release exercises/stretches, to give them more space in the hip joint and more length in the surrounding muscles. The client should enjoy this ending, as the wall gives them a surface to push against and it will help the client feel the immediacy of the release in their tight/painful hip, it’s a great way to end the session and give them something juicy they can remember! 

 I might be biased, but Mat work is the best work. I mean Joseph Pilates  invented the Mat repertoire first, these were the exercises that serve as the foundation for his entire method. Yes the apparatus/equipment and accompanying exercises have a place in the system… of course! But when it comes down to it, the equipment serves as stepping stones, with the ultimate goal of getting the body ready for the Mat exercises. Romana Kryzanowska (one of Joseph Pilates original students) said in an interview with Washington Post in 2003 “The apparatus are good, but the mat work is everything. If you can do the mat work perfectly, you don't need the apparatus. But people love toys.”

The props’ ultimate goal is to get you to an unassisted Mat work (no props) one day. It’s a difficult thing to throw your body weight around in space- especially with control and precision and grace. So until that day, use the prop! And if nothing else, it’s fun!

I’ve built a business out of the Pilates Mat work and props. Recently, this is what one client had to say about the use of a prop in my virtual group Mat class: 

“Loved this class Kirsti especially as my back has been sore. The use of the prop, particularly assisting roll up, meant I could access a lot of the moves I couldn’t the week before (due to pain and the accompanying “weakness” of core muscles that go with that)”.

I’ll also be using props throughout my upcoming Embrace the Change program. It starts on the 15th February and runs for 5 weeks. This Pilates and Nutrition program will help women dealing with the physical, mental and emotional change that menopause brings.

Whether you are at the beginning of this hormonal shift or right in the thick of it, the program aims to give you strategies to manage your aches and pains, your weight and your energy levels + sleep. For more information about this program go here.

There's a First Time for Everything, Including Pilates.

Me reflecting back to my first class back in 2010. Thanks Neeta @neetaphotography for this shot back in 2017.

I’ll always remember my first Pilates class. Just like my first kiss, it was awkward, weird, I didn’t know what to do with my hands, I held my breath a lot and I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards.

I almost didn’t go back after my first class. I mean I loved it yes, but man, the teacher was telling me so much stuff… like, how to squeeze my butt (‘don’t you just clench the living daylight out the top of your legs’!!), pull my stomach in, relax my shoulders (‘it’s not my shoulders that need relaxing lady, it’s my brain that’s fried from all these things I have to think about’), do something with my ribs that I just didn’t quite comprehend how I’m going to move a body part that is made out of bone and then also now she’s trying to tell me how to breathe?! Whoa. 

But, never one to walk away from a challenge, plus the promise of 6 pack abs (the friend from my old work who swore to me that Pilates was the only thing she’d ever done that got her visible abs), I knew I’d be back to conquer this ‘Pilates thing’.

This is most definitely not the first time i did the Stomach Series. But you get the jist of the buuuuurn! Thanks Gemma @hudlow.photography for this shot last year.

The first time I did the Stomach Series, or the Series Of 5, I knew I was on to a good thing. How can five movements bring about so much delightful torture? I remember thinking, what a waste of years and years, trying to do 300 crunches a night on my bedroom floor as a teenager, thinking that that was the answer to some ‘bikini body’. It’s all about precision of movement. Do it right and quality will trump quantity every. single. time.

Thanks to @wellness_by_norah for this. Nailed it.

The first time I farted in class doing the Rolling Like A Ball exercise I wanted the world to swallow me up, I was so embarrassed. Thankfully my gorgeous teacher didn’t notice, or else she was so used to it and just ignored it. I’m sure it was the latter. Now that I’ve been around Pilates for 10 years, I know that if any exercise is going to make you fart, it’s that one. I’ve lost count of the amount of farts from clients in class I’ve had to ignore myself. Joseph Pilates himself talked about his exercises being like a massage of the internal organs. It meant you were truly working from the inside out. And it’s the inside or the deep stabilisers of our centre that we are particularly concerned with working in Pilates. Now I just tell those clients, ‘hey, no stress, you’re doing it right when a fart escapes’ ;-) 

The perfect AngelinaJolie OhFuck FacePalm Animated GIF for your conversation. Discover and Share the best GIFs on Tenor.

The first time I really connected to my powerhouse (centre/core whatever you want to call it). It was like an Ah Ha moment. The pennie dropped. ‘Oooohhh so this is what it feels like’. How to describe it… like I was zipped up. Supported. Like someone was inside me hugging my organs and muscles. I especially remember, after babies, how much I appreciated the skill of being able to feel like I could physically put back the pieces of the puzzle that were my insides. Childbirth made my insides feel like they were floating around inside me looking for a place to call their home, not connected to anything, just floating aimlessly inside my skin. So weird. Thank F for Pilates with that ol’ chestnut. Who knows where my intestines might have ended up without it. 

The first time I felt the effects of missing a class. I thought Pilates was just a way of keeping fit. When I would miss a week here or miss a couple of classes there, sometimes I would just make up for missing it by going for an extra run or do an extra class at the gym that week. Then I realised, actually, this Pilates thing is keeping me together. When I miss a Pilates class it was making running harder, and I wasn’t recovering from the gym as quick. Hmmmm interesting. 

The first time I realised Pilates was making me a better human. I think this didn’t really occur until after kids. Of course I have known for ages how good exercise makes you feel, the endorphins, the reduction of stress on the brain, mental alertness and all that great stuff. But once you are in the fiery pits of sleep deprivation like you’ve never experienced before, and you would do anything to have 30 minutes of time to yourself without little gritty, grubby hands all over you and 16 cups of coffee is probably bordering on too much, holy hell, do you learn the benefits of moving the body and focusing the mind, it’s all in the mind to muscle baby… centred, purposeful movement is life changing. It reminds you that you can use your mind and body for great things.  (

Love these cheeky monkeys. Pic @hudlow.photography

Image from Vivemasblog

The first time I realised that Pilates never actually gets any easier. About 6 months after starting Pilates, I thought, why does this not feel any easier? Am I doing it wrong? Well firstly, we are our own worst enemy, nothing like a bit of competition with yourself. Secondly, it’s human nature to look for the negatives, once upon a time it would have saved our skins to be on the lookout for the danger/the negative/ the baddies. Hello, Wooly Mammoth, you can’t catch me, I’m outta here. Fast forward to now and we still hold a negativity bias, basically, humans tend to focus on the negatives over the positives. Back to Pilates, my teacher was always really good at highlighting how far I had come. ‘Remember when you couldn’t roll up off the ground?, remember when you could only do this on the yellow springs and now you’re on the purple springs?, remember when you had to rest between every rep?’…..hmmm yeah, ok , good point, thanks. The trick with Pilates is that as you learn more (eg, see paragraph above about connection to powerhouse, hello AHA moment), you learn how to use the right muscles, sometimes these muscles aren’t used to working so hard, they are now working in conjunction with those more dominant muscles and voila you now have more muscles working, more precision and concentration needed to control said muscles and you will most likely feel that effort in spades! I love @carrie_pages_pilates take on this……”I always compare Pilates to dance and music. With dance and music after a certain point in your training, you're no longer learning new movements or notes but you refining your performance of them. You begin to put the movements or notes together in ways that make them more challenging. You may learn to execute more turns or hold notes longer but the fundamentals remain the same, therefore the process doesn’t get easier you just get better. For me, Pilates is like a dance or symphony that flows from one movement to the next and I love to experience how each workout feels different. I try to perform the movements with more precision and control concentrating on how I can move more effortlessly and focused. I never get bored. If anything I find myself falling more in love with Pilates year after year”. Well said Carrie, well said! 

So there you have it, my firsts with Pilates. I know a lot of my clients have had some of these same thoughts/experiences… perhaps you have? Can you relate? Maybe there was a key ‘first’ for you that I’m missing? I’d love for you to share your experience with Pilates firsts. Maybe, you’re keen to get amongst some classes and start some firsts of your own? I’m currently taking on new clients, virtually for now, because of Rona, beauty of this is, it’s harder to hear you fart through Zoom, so what happens in your lounge room, stays in your lounge room! #winning

DM me on the Gram @kirsti_pilates_plus or shoot me an email kirsti@kirstipilatestoyou.com.au.

Pilates Pelvic Floor & Perifit

So I never really thought I would be writing about products or recommending products on my IG feed. However, this one is a doozy. If you have ever had a baby, are thinking about having a baby, are pregnant or have had any sort of pelvic floor weakness/disfunction, then you’ll wanna keep reading. Below is a breakdown of my experience with the Perifit device that reads pelvic floor strength and stamina directly from your lady bits via bluetooth games on your mobile phone! Intrigued? Yep, I was too. 

29 weeks pregnant with my first baby.

It all started with this blog I wrote a while back. It was about my experience of Pilates and pregnancy and birth and the after affects of birth on my pelvic floor and how Pilates helped me recover.

Recently a company, Perifit, contacted me to say they had read my blog and thought I might be interested in their product. Having no idea who Perifit was, I was totally dubious about this so called company wanting to give me free stuff to try. After a Google search and a brief read of the excellent reviews this company was getting, I was more inclined to respond positively to their request for trialling their product. So, what is Perifit? Well this is straight from their website: ‘Perifit is a Kegel exerciser that lets you control video games with your pelvic floor. When you contract your pelvic floor the bird goes up. When you relax it, the bird goes down. These games were designed by doctors to help properly strengthen the pelvic floor. It works so well that more than 1000 doctors already recommend Perifit to combat incontinence and prolapse and other pelvic floor disorders.’ 

Once it arrived, it sat on my bedside table for weeks. Partly because the unknown is a bit terrifying and that’s always a good excuse to procrastinate, party because I thought it might take ages to set up, read the instructions and just generally figure out. But I was wrong. Well, the unknown is always a little terrifying, but it was straightforward to read about and set up. First tick! 

When I decided to give it a go, opening the box and noticing it’s uncanny resemblance for a vibrator, I all of a sudden felt like I needed to excuse myself from the living room couch, ha! ‘It’s for work’, I was telling myself.. and my partner wink, wink. 

Once you have downloaded the Perifit app, turned on the device and activated bluetooth  on your mobile, you’re all set for insertion. It’s only mildly uncomfortable initially, if I had to compare it to a pap-smear, where a pap-smear is an 8 or 9 on the discomfort scale, this is about a 1 or 2. Totally manageable.

You can target your pelvic floor training based on your needs, simply take a short test and it will calculate which training program is best for you eg postpartum, incontinence or intimate wellbeing. Once you have your program, your games will be targeted to getting the best outcome from your program. 

So the game itself… well, think of a rudimentary Mario Cart meets Angry Birds type scenario. Where you (or your pelvic floor to be more specific) are the object that has to fly (by contracting your pelvic floor) to capture the floating items in the sky. And then brought back down (again, with the controlled release of of your pelvic floor) along a specific pathway of floating objects to capture either in a linear angled line or something a bit more adhoc. The point being that you want your pelvic floor to be able to do both, steady increasing contraction with steady decreasing release as well as short sharp contract and release muscular control.  

After the game you receive your results on an intricate biofeedback screen, this helps to break down the difference between your deep vs superficial muscles. It tells you how you rate in terms of Force, Frequency, Stamina, Release and Accuracy. The stats you get are so interesting and really help to target the specific areas of improvement.

There’s a manual mode, which I love! Its designed to record the muscular behaviour of your pelvic floor in its functionality. So, pop it in while your vacuuming or carrying the baby and see how your pelvic floor naturally reacts in these situations. Fascinating! 

Why is this relevant to Pilates and my work?

Some would argue that historically, Joseph Pilates would not have cued pelvic floor engagement. His writings indicate that he believed his exercises would activate the neuromuscular system in its natural “correct” patterns, like those of the "newborn babe" or animal. We also know that he believed in the importance of breath…"Before any real benefit can be derived from physical exercises, one must first learn how to breathe properly." Joseph Pilates. 

Picture from Pinterest courtesy of Dani Menesis at Studio Pilates

These two points give us an insight into what makes Pilates so effective. When we breathe as we should, physiologically, we can distribute our intra-abdominal pressure in a balanced way throughout the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities. When we can balance intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) distribution, we are creating muscle balance in our “core muscles". Our core muscles include the diaphragm, all the abdominals, the deep intersegmental spinal muscles, and the pelvic floor. To facilitate ideal distribution of IAP, the diaphragm has to be able to move up and down freely, which requires that ALL core muscles, including those in the pelvic floor and abdominal wall, can work in both concentric (shortening) and eccentric (elongated) contraction. When we breathe correctly, we are using these muscles in a balanced way, and our spine can stabilise due to the correct distribution of IAP. 

Picture from Pinterest courtesy of Healthwise, Incorporated

 So this is why I rate this device. Although Pilates works the body as a whole, understanding how and where we need to build stability and that our muscles need to be trained in both eccentric and concentric function (pelvic floor being one of those critical areas), is an essential tool to building overall strength and mobility. 

I would describe childbirth like a semi-trailer has rail-roaded you from the inside out,  so it’s not hard to imagine the imbalances and dysfunctions that women can experience after such an event. We are often told to do our ‘Kegels’ before and after childbirth to prepare and rebuild the pelvic floor muscles, this is often interpreted as just focusing on the concentric contraction in an isolated activity. As already mentioned we don’t just want the shortening of the muscle, we want the eccentric or elongation of the muscle as well. So thank you Perifit for making a device that helps with the both, and therefore setting the groundwork for successful, whole body Pilates conditioning! 

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Me in action! Getting my clients to switch on their core, with the help of the Magic Circle.

Even Pilates Teachers Prolapse

My experience with birthing big babies and how Pilates helped my pelvic floor ‘come back’

Ah, the ‘P’ word. Prolapse. More specifically, vaginal prolapse. A word that expectant Mothers fear, and new Mothers don’t want to hear. When the pelvic floor is strong, it supports the pelvic organs to prevent problems such as prolapse. If you’re not familiar with what a prolapse is, emedicinehealth.com define it as ‘a condition in which structures such as the uterus, rectum, bladder, urethra, small bowel or the vagina itself -may begin to prolapse, or fall out of their normal positions’. Yikes. No one wants to imagine their bits hanging between their legs, unless you’re male, in which case, the more hang the better, right?! So, you can imagine my state of disbelief when the Pelvic Floor Women Physio examined me 6 weeks after the birth of my second child and told me I had stage 1 prolapse. Now I knew things were a bit dicey down there, but I didn’t know things were that bad?!

Image courtesy of womenshealthadvice.com

So how does a vaginal prolapse happen?

Damage to the pelvic floor occurs particularly:

1) when there is a long second stage labour (tick- both of my boys), 

2) during instrumental deliveries – vacuum extraction or forceps (tick- both of my boys), and 

3) in the delivery of large infants (tick- second baby 4.1kilos; Womhealth.org.au). 

I guess looking at the history of both births I had a fair chance of a prolapse.

After birth, I distinctly remember having a feeling of detachment - not to my baby, but to my body. It was like my organs and insides were just floating around aimlessly inside my skin, not quite sure what to do, where to be or how to behave, especially my bladder. I was wetting myself for a good week after baby number 2. Highly annoying! Don’t even get me going on having to sneeze or having a laugh at this time. I really had to tune into my bladder, the moment I needed to go to the toilet, there was no waiting,  I had to go right then!

I don’t blame you if you’re thinking, ‘but she’s a Pilates teacher, she must do her pelvic floor exercise ALL the time?’ Well yes, and no. 

When I was pregnant (and subsequently immediately after birth for the next little while), I would specifically carve out some time in my day to activate my pelvic floor. Usually I was doing a routine, mundane task like, waiting for the kettle to boil in the kitchen or having a shower- anything that happened daily and more than once a day where I would get in the habit of doing them while I waited (more on those specific exercises later).

When I’m not pregnant I don’t really think about my pelvic floor all that much. Sure, I do Pilates and part of doing Pilates is having an awareness of how to engage those muscles in order to stabilise them while another body part is mobilised. But this ‘internal stabilsing’ is something that has become second nature. So, when I do my everyday tasks (e.g., bending down to pick up the many things sprawled across the floor- clothing, toys, mess, towels, animals, children) I first stabilise internally through my pelvic floor, and low abdominals before I mobilise my torso in the direction of the ‘thing’ I’m picking up. Pilates in this way has been a savior. When you can use your pelvic floor and deep abdominals, you are less likely to have low back pain, and I know how inconvenient and restricting back pain is when you have small children who want to be hugged and chased and comforted.

Another important aspect of pelvic floor activation is pelvic floor release. Especially for me, as a Pilates teacher, I’m constantly thinking of drawing ‘in and up’. I do it along with my clients, so, when I’m telling them to do it, I’m unconsciously doing it along with them! If the pelvic floor becomes difficult to relax, it’s constantly in a state of being semi-flexed. Imagine flexing your bicep constantly and never fully letting go, after a while this would cause your arm to lose flexibility, strength and the ability to relax. That is similar to what happens to the pelvic floor (goop.com).

After birth, the body naturally starts to restore and repair. After a week of wetting myself, I could start to hold my bladder slightly longer, after a few weeks, sneezing wasn’t so scary. Still, after the confirmation of stage 1 prolapse at 6 weeks postpartum, I knew there was some further work to do.  When I went back to the Pelvic Floor Women Physio at 12 weeks postpartum, I had another internal and was relieved to hear everything was back to ‘normal’. 

So what are the actual exercises I did while pregnant and post pregnancy for strengthening and releasing the pelvic floor? Here are 2 simple things that I did:

1. Sitting down with a pillow or folded up towel between the bottom of your inside thighs, sit yourself towards the edge of the couch or chair (no kickin’ back in a slump!). Feet flat on the ground, lift up tall out of your pelvis up to the top of your head. Take an inhale breath to prepare, then on the exhale breath, gently squeeze the pillow or towel while thinking about stopping a wee mid-stream as well as holding in a fart. This will lift the hammock of muscles at the base of the pelvic floor from your front passage to the back passage in and upwards. Try and hold for 5 seconds (you can build up to 10, 15, 20, 30 secs etc.). Make sure that when you let go, you feel a proper distinction between the contraction and the release. If you feel like you couldn’t distinguish between holding the pelvic floor up and letting it go, try reducing the amount of time you hold on for. I was starting at about 3 sets and worked up to around 8-10.

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2. Standing up, slightly bent over (kitchen bench is usually a good option), with your legs hip width apart (it’s harder to squeeze your glutes together in this position so you have a better chance of isolating the pelvic floor muscles), draw up and in through the pelvic floor when you exhale (remember, this should feel like you are holding a wee and fart). I often put my hand on my low tummy when doing this. You want to feel that your low tummy is pulling away from your hand towards your spine. Repetitions and durations are the same as the sitting variation.  

A couple of pointers to be aware of:

·         Don’t hold your breath. Breathe normally over the contraction of the pelvic floor muscles,

·         Don’t squeeze your bum cheeks together (can be tricky to isolate pelvic floor and the surrounding muscles- if you find it hard to switch off the glutes try the version standing up), and

·         Tune in to your shoulders- make sure they don’t creep up to your ears and start overworking.

Image courtesy of @neetaphotography on location at Authentic Pilates Melbourne, Hampton, Melbourne.

Upon reflection, I think the odds were always going to be against me given my birth scenarios, regardless of my job and pelvic floor abilities!  However, I’d hate to think what state my insides might be in without the exercises I did during and after pregnancy… who knows?!

I credit Pilates as setting the baseline of my fitness and strength before I fell pregnant. Being attune to my body allowed me to work safely through exercise to maintain my strength and flexibility while I was pregnant, making the road back from the birth of my boys not as daunting as I initially expected.

I recently made this little video demonstrating the sitting down pelvic floor exercises. In the video I’m using a Pilates Magic Circle, however, a rolled-up towel or cushion would be fine.

For those of you interested in starting Pilates prior to, during or after your pregnancy in the comfort of your own home check out my website for more information and contact details.

Please note: This is not intended to be specific advice; pelvic floor muscle training is not necessarily one-size fits all. I recommend being evaluated by a pelvic floor specialist if you are experiencing difficulties.

You should also be sure to gain clearance from your Obstetrician/GP after the birth of your baby before you undertake/begin any exercise.