5/5/2020 4 Best Pilates Exercises for Lower Back Pain to Try in 2020

4 Best Pilates Exercises to Help Relieve Lower

Back Pain
These easy movements will seriously make a difference.

By Molly Messana Apr 16, 2020

Your eyes open to bright sunlight streaming through the window and birds chirping
outside. You can’t wait to get out of bed. Except you can’t—because of that dang stiff
back.

Lower back pain affects about 80% of the population at some point. It’s the third most
common reason to see a doctor and the second leading cause of missing work—only
the common cold beats it!

Back pain can stem from a long list of causes: sprains and strains on one end,
herniated discs and fractures on the other. Less serious—and more common—
culprits include daily habits like poor posture, slouching while seated at your desk,
and lugging a heavy purse on one shoulder.

Fortunately, in many cases the best medicine isn’t surgery or pills. It’s exercise.

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5/5/2020 4 Best Pilates Exercises for Lower Back Pain to Try in 2020

While not every exercise style will do the

trick, Pilates is one that can. Whether you take a
class or hit the mat at home, practicing these
low-impact routines can help ease back pain, as
well as prevent it. Pilates focuses on core
strengthening, an evidence-based rehabilitation
method for treating low back pain.

“Pilates offers so many options to access your

core muscles for all different fitness levels, ages,
.
and body types,” says Amy Kiser Schemper,
10-Minute Pilates: Sculpt Your
creator of Prevention’s new workout Body From Head to Toe
program, 10-Minute Pilates. Prevention
amazon.com
$27.95
Combining deep breathing and short, precise
movements strengthens your deep abdominal BUY NOW

and back muscles. Try these Pilates moves that

target various parts of your core:

Swimmers

How to do them: Lie on your stomach with your arms extended, your head and neck
lifted off the floor. At the same time, lift opposite leg and arm, hold for a moment, and
return them back to starting position. Repeat on the other side.

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5/5/2020 4 Best Pilates Exercises for Lower Back Pain to Try in 2020

What they work: Every time you tilt, twist, or arch your back, you engage your
multifidus, a series of tiny muscles that are attached to the spinal column and
stabilize the vertebrae. Keeping them strong and limber is vital and research
suggests pilates is an effective way to do it.

How they help your back: Moves that start from a stomach-down position like
Swimmers fires up the multifidus so that it supports your spine better.

Plank Singles

How to do them: Begin on your stomach, propping your upper body onto your
forearms, toes pressed into the mat. Draw your abs in and use your core to press
your knees up into a forearm plank position. Reverse the move, using your abs to
control your knees back down, then your stomach, to starting position.

What they work: The deepest of the abdominal muscles, the transversus abdominis
(TVA) wraps horizontally across your lower abdomen to keep internal organs in place
and support the spine. Unlike the flashier obliques and upper abs, a sculpted TVA
might not transform the look of your waistline, but research has shown it can improve
how your lower back feels.

How they help your back: Plank variations like plank singles lower the strain on
your back by forcing your deep core muscles to do all the work.

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Shoulder Bridges

How to do them: Lie on your back with your knees bent, arms at your side. Lift your
butt off the ground to create a straight line from your knees down to your shoulders,
making sure to keep your core tight and not to arch your lower back. Return to
starting position.

What they work: Think of your pelvic floor like fibers in a piece of fabric that carries
your pelvic organs (bladder, bowel, and uterus) and helps stabilize your pelvis as you
move. If pregnancy or age stretch them out, they can’t support those areas and their
functions with full strength. Weak pelvic floor muscles can lead to incontinence,
painful sex, and yes, back pain. Pelvic floor exercises isolate these often-neglected
muscles and have been shown to help treat chronic lower back pain.

How they help your back: This move uses gravity to take pressure off the pelvic
floor while strengthening it at the same time.

The Hundred

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How to do it: Lie on your back with your knees lifted to create a 90-degree angle in
your legs, head and shoulders lifted off the mat. Pressing your core muscles into the
mat, pulse your arms up and down in a small motions. The goal is to do 100 total
pulses, but if you’re just starting out, try 50!

What it works: The hundred does wonders for your diaphragm. The way you
breathe affects how well your muscles work. While there are different ways of
breathing that are suitable for different types of exercise, studies have shownproper
Pilates breathing techniques enable the diaphragm (that dome-shaped sheet of
muscle and tendon that separates the chest from the abdomen) to activate and
strengthen its neighboring stabilizing muscles in your core. Using the same breathing
techniques in daily lifting activities also helps make you more mindful of how your
body moves so you reduce the risk of back injury.

How it helps your back: This traditional Pilates move balances both inhales and
exhales so your diaphragm can efficiently engage the muscles that support the spine,
lowering the risk of injury.

But Pilates is more than just a physical workout.

Its six basic principles—centering, concentration, control, precision, breathing, and
flow—may focus on the physical aspect of Pilates, but continued practice can also
boost mental well-being. By learning to focus on your breathing, you center yourself
and become more aware of your body. This meditative quality to Pilates lends itself to
reducing factors that exacerbate pain like stress and anxiety.

Further studies have also shown that expert meditators have a thicker cortex that is
associated with lower pain sensitivity. So long-term practice of mindful meditation
may then lead to enhancing parts of the brain that directly affect pain perception.

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The combination of positive physical and mental responses to Pilates is a big part of
why many rehabilitation centers have incorporated it into their programs. “It’s an
exercise truly anybody can do,” says Kiser Schemper. “It’s very accessible to all
fitness levels and easy to make it more or less challenging.”

With its “stickability” factor, Pilates makes it easy to alleviate back pain, as well as
prevent new injuries from developing.

Get more exercises to strengthen your back with 10-Minute Pilates from Prevention.

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