What is Clinical Pilates?
You may have heard the term “Clinical Pilates” but don’t really know what it means or what these sessions look like.
Clinical Pilates is another tool that some Physiotherapists have in order to help treat injuries, manage and reduce pain, and keep you doing what you love. These Physiotherapists have training in pilates from a rehab perspective, which means they combine exercises in a mat pilates format or utilize the pilates reformer. The reformer is a special piece of equipment because it’s completely spring loaded so we can alter the effect of gravity and make exercises easier or harder based on position and spring load/ location. We often team up with your care team which may include your Orthopedic Surgeon, Physiatrist, Sports Med Doctor or GP to provide comprehensive care.
Within these sessions physiotherapists will guide you through exercises specific to you to help treat your condition and may also do manual therapy, mobilizations/ manipulations, IMS or other indicated modalities. These sessions are 1:1 with the physiotherapist for an allotted time period.
You may have noticed more and more elite athletes choosing to incorporate clinical pilates into their prehab or rehab routines because we can target the deep stabilizing muscles throughout the body adn the core to help prevent future injuries and work on imbalances within the body.
The people we often see for clinical pilates include:
OA (including Pre/Post surgical): strengthening in gravity altered conditions can help gain stregnth without stressing the joints affected
Osteoporosis: this is great for working on postural muscles
Chronic sprains/ strains: often these are caused by muscle imbalances
Low back pain: this condition especially if chronic can change how you move and use the core muscles and we work to restore this to optimal functioning. Discogenic pain is well treated this way
Concussion/ Neck pain: the deep neck flexors and core muscles can be rehabbed very effectively
Athletes: looking to excel to that next level, prevent injury, recovery from injuries. Especially for one side dominant sports (throwing sports, field hockey, tennis/ racket sports), or linear repetitive sports (cycling, running, swiming) working on counter balance
Physically demanding jobs: nurses, care aids, mechanics and flight attendants are professions that require a lot of heavy lifting, pulling and dealing with unexpected circumstances that put your body at risk of injury. By working on strengthening the anticipatory action of your deep core muscles we can look to prevent the severity or elimite these injuries all together.
Hypermobility: if you are more bendy than most or have hypermobility spectrum disorder or ehlers danlos syndrome clinical pilates is a great tool to strengthen postural muscles to protect your joints.
No previous pilates experience is needed! We require our patients to wear grippy socks on the reformer for everyone’s safety and those can be purchased at the front desk for $5 or you can bring your own. We do have some to borrow incase you ever forget yours.