Scoliosis & Pilates

I have a client with scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine...and its very common, even in kids..

Kids with rucksacks full of heavy school books tend to lean and hike up their shoulder on one side to cope with the load, leading to a wonky spine over time..so a lengthened spine becomes a spine with a kink..a bit like a long straight road having a roundabout breaking it up along the line somewhere..the roundabout is a "bossy" muscle, its in charge and is pulling the vertebrae to the side..so if the upper right side of the thoracic spine (your middle 12 vertebrae..thats your torso)has the bossy muscles, you can be pretty sure that the bottom left will also kink too..2 roundabouts for the price of one, making an S shape of the spine..

so think about it..this will make it hard to breath into the left lung as the left side has dipped, the hip bones arent going to be level, it affects your leg length, one will be longer than the other..and so on..
So..what causes it? theres quite a few things, apart from kids and their book bags, think about a mother carrying a child on her hip, day in day out..creating uneven hips, bossy muscles on one side, weak muscles on the other..but it can be avoided in most cases by just being more aware of the one and only precious body that you are ever going to have whilst on this planet..hair looks nice? great make up? nice polished toenails? loosing weight on your new years resolution? nice new shoes? great new pair of jeans?

lovely...now look deeper...it isn't going to cost a penny to be more posture aware from head to toe and everything in-between, and when you think you've got it sussed, look again as you may have missed something. Walking, sitting, shopping, carrying bags, how you stand, leaning in to one hip a lot?



In the picture above, her perception is that this is sitting normally as as upright as possible ..

 

Now, just pressing lightly into her hands..lengthening through the crown of the head , lifting the diaphragm..

Can you see the difference in her back..? 

This is hard work for her, yes we do heaps of other specific moves that help the alignment and release the bossy muscles first and go on to strengthen the weak muscles, the basis being the pelvic floor, and the feet, start in the basement and work your way up the floors to the penthouse!