How can Pilates help you prepare for pregnancy, enhance your experience while you are pregnant, and recover from childbirth?
(What is Pilates? click here)


Before

Pilates can help you prepare for pregnancy by strengthening your core, balancing your body, and improving your posture. Muscle memory developed before and during the early stages of pregnancy will help you recover faster after you give birth.

 

During

Pilates will keep you moving within a safe range of motion, focus on your breathing skills, help ease physical discomforts, and improve or maintain your balance skills as your body changes. When your workouts are designed for you specifically through all the stages of pregnancy, you can get a gentle, yet demanding workout that doesn’t raise your heart rate, cause undue strain, dehydrate, or overheat you.

 

After

Pilates is a wonderful way to get back in shape after pregnancy.  You will learn key Pilates concepts that can be practiced at home and applied to your everyday movements. Pilates will help you get reacquainted with your post pregnancy body by strengthening your abdominals, engaging your pelvic floor, realigning your posture, and connecting with your breath to increase your energy as well as soothe your nervous system.
 

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The Hundred Series is a classical Pilates exercise that is designed to warm up the body on many levels. It is named the Hundred Series because it is designed to include 100 breaths and/or arms pulses. Breathing and Coordination are key Pilates Principles. (click here for more info)


When done in the traditional manner it increases our body temperature, activates the whole body, and increases our breathing capacity. It is often regarded as a bit detoxifying because the breathing pattern pushes all the old air out and draws new, fresh air in. You are warming up and releasing tension in your intercostal muscles, which can get very gluey and tight due to our everyday movements. 

​Want to learn more about breathing? click here 


In my group classes and private lessons, I often modify the form of this traditional exercise in order to focus on the breathing pattern. We also usually start with some building blocks of breath work and arm activation to ensure our most successful attempt at the full exercise. 


Want to get better at the breathing pattern?
Just like anything else, the best way to improve or get more comfortable is to practice it more often than you might see me. 


Here are some tips:
-Start with a gentle warm up, get moving and breathing. Try to focus on your full body awareness and coordination. 


Pick a position to try the Hundred breathing pattern. If you have been sitting all day, I suggest trying it standing up! You can play around with hand placement, it may give you some extra awareness and therefore success if you have a hand or two on your sternum or at the base of your ribcage. 

• Practice some accumulating breaths. (inhale for 1 beat, exhale for 1 beat, inhale for 2 beats, exhale for 2 beats, inhale for 3 beats, exhale for 3 beats, inhale for 4 beats, exhale for 4 beats, then inhale for 5 beats, exhale for 5 beats)
• Practice the full 5 counts in, 5 counts out with a smooth breath
• Practice the full 5 counts in, 5 counts out with a staccato breath (sniff or puff for each beat)

How did it go?
Please feel free to comment or ask questions below.


If you are interested in trying some private lessons or need some guidance on cultivate a way to have Pilates in your life, click here to contact me directly.