Benefits of Rehabilitative Pilates
By Siun Griffin, Community Manager at London College of Osteopathy and Health Sciences (LCO)
The benefits of rehabilitative pilates are an important part of injury recovery, which of course, is why it is so popular. The goal of incorporating any rehabilitative exercise into a program to help you recover from an injury is to rebuild muscle, strength, and full function.
Several studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of pilates for rehabilitation and found that this type of exercise is successful in reducing disability and pain.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits.
Whole Body Exercise
Pilates improves the strength, flexibility, mobility, and stability of the whole body. Flexibility can be improved quicker than when doing other types of rehabilitative exercise in many cases.
This is one of the main reasons why it has been so popular when doctors or therapists put together a rehab plan.
Pilates also improves posture and how your body moves, reducing the risk of re-injury or new injuries. The precise, controlled movements of pilates exercises combined with correct breathing work the deepest parts of your muscles.
While it’s not possible to completely get rid of any injury risk, pilates may help reduce the severity.
Exercise Flexibility
One fantastic aspect of using pilates as a rehabilitation exercise is that there is a lot of flexibility on how they are done and to what extent. It is possible to minimize each exercise in the early stages of rehab and slowly progress as the body strengthens and recovers.
Mind and Body
Pilates doesn’t just help rehab physical injuries, but it can also help the mind recover from the effects of suffering an injury. This goes back to the above – whole body exercise – as doing pilates well means connecting the body and the mind.
Pilates vs Conventional Exercise
Pilates differs from conventional exercise because there isn’t a particular focus on losing weight or putting strain on the body by lifting heavy weights. It also focuses on the whole body.
It is a none weight bearing exercise that can be modified to suit the individual and allows the implementation of exercise even during the acute stage of an injury.
What Injuries Can Pilates Help
Pilates can help in the recovery process from many different injuries. These include neck and back injuries or conditions. Knee pain from overuse or acute injury such as ACL tears.
It can also help those who have undergone hip, knee, or other joint replacement surgeries and those who have suffered a stroke.
