Episode 6: Breaking Down Stabilization
Do you want a more physically secure and stable body? Today I talk about the 3 major areas that are important in achieving this!
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Show Notes:
Introduction to stabilization in Pilates
Importance of a strong and firm foundation for our body
Gaining control of our body through stabilization
Pilates and control
Joseph Pilates method called "contrology"
The breath, the scoop, and activating the center
Stabilization areas
Shoulders, ribcage, and pelvis
Shoulder stability
Overuse of shoulders and upper body
Proper placement of shoulders
Using the circle in the hands to activate the scoop
Ribcage stability
Widest and safest range for arm movements
Feeling the heaviness of the ribcage
Exercise: ribcage arms to understand range of motion
Pelvic stability
Feeling the pelvis and how it moves
Learning to tilt the pelvis using breath and scoop
Stabilized movement with legs
Exercises: heel slide and knee fold
Importance of stabilized movement
Translates to standing and more complex movements
Crucial for standing and walking as important life movements
Recap
Shoulder, ribcage, and pelvic stability
The importance of breath, scoop, focus, and concentration
Creating a deeper connection between the mind and body
Key Takeaways:
Stabilization is fundamental to Pilates and essential for a strong foundation.
Mastering shoulder, ribcage, and pelvic stability improves overall control and prevents injury.
Focusing on breath, scoop, and concentration fosters a deeper mind-body connection.
Transcript:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to better than a pill. I'm Cari Vann, and I'm so grateful and excited to be here again to share with you today. In today's episode, we're going to be breaking down what stabilization is and what's included in this fundamental skill set. Simply put, stabilization is the process of making the body more physically secure and stable. We need this if we want to have a strong and firm foundation for our body to stand and to move from.
Now, stabilization helps us to gain control of our body, and if we speak in terms of control, that's really what Pilates is all about at its core. In fact, the name of Joseph Pilates method is actually called control ology, which is gaining control of your body. Last week we spoke about the breath and the importance of the scoop in activating the center. A strong center is the foundation for all of our body's movements, and again, it's often referred to as centering. Now, a strong center is going to give you better control of all of your movements, and this is where we always start with the scoop and we build upon it.
So every movement in essence is going to require the use of the scoop as well as focus and concentration, and this creates a deeper connection between the mind and body. I'm going to break down stabilization, looking at three areas: the shoulders, the rib cage, and the pelvis.
Starting with the shoulders, let's bring awareness to shoulder stability. Most people overuse their shoulders and upper body, and a lot of times this is due to a lack of strength in the center. Having an awareness of feeling the proper placement of the shoulders can go a long way, and it's easiest to sense and feel while you're lying on your back on a supportive mat or table. To start, you want to have a sense of keeping the shoulder blades, or scapulas, anchored to the mat. The shoulders should be checked in with often through movement, feeling what it's like to have the shoulder blades come up off the mat and then feeling the weight of the bones of the shoulder blades anchor back down, and sensing what this feels like, like I said, is key and it's accomplished through repetition.
I also love teaching shoulder stability while using the circle in the hands to activate the scoop, because the tendency here is going to be to want to over squeeze the circle or really muscle the movement with the upper body. Instead, we want to lightly press the circle while keeping our shoulders stable, and this will lead to a greater connection to your center while you're scooping.
Now if we move on to ribcage stability, this is going to give your arms and shoulders their widest range and the safest range that will allow you to lift your arms away from your body, lift them up without suffering strain or injury. Ribcage stability actually starts by feeling your ribcage, feeling the heaviness of your ribcage, the back of the rib cage into the mat while you're lying supine or on your back. So when you are lying on your back and you begin to lift your arms overhead, keeping your shoulders stable, you want to bring your arms back over your head, only to the point where you can maintain the two: the stable shoulder and the feeling of the back of the ribs without letting the front of the ribs pop up, which you can often feel and sense right through the front of the ribcage. So this exercise that I just described is called rib cage arms and it teaches you what your range of motion is. You don't want to have any strain in the shoulders either. So both rib cage and shoulder stability are going to be key to preventing injury andcontinue
learning about your body and creating awareness while you're moving the arms and engaging your center.
Okay, so now if we move on to pelvic stability, first what's important to understand is just feeling the pelvis and how it moves. And I start by having people learn to tilt the pelvis only in one direction, using their breath and their scoop. And by doing this, not just doing a tilting movement, but by using the breath and your center and your scoop, this is going to require a lot more work, especially on your pelvic floor and TBA, transverse abdominal muscles. You can sense your pelvis leaving from a neutral position, natural position, lying flat and your back moving. I always start by teaching the tilt, learning to what I say flatten the back into the mat or what would be a posterior pelvic tilt. Now I don't teach the anterior pelvic tilt or an arch until later. This has just been based on experience and what really I have found that works best with people in actually getting the concept and the movement into their bodies.
So after sensing how the tailbone stays anchored when the pelvis is in a neutral position, then we can work on pelvic stability through stabilized movement. And this typically involves using the legs and our breath and our scoop in our center. Stabilized movement with the legs teaches you not to move the back and the pelvis as you move your legs, and it is so important for back health and injury prevention, and it just leads to a greater control over your body and all of its movements. I teach two basic movements: a heel slide movement while doing pelvic stability and a knee fold. And when doing this, the main goal is not only feeling your scoop, but using your breathing, feeling your center, but not moving your back and keeping your pelvis in that neutral and stable position.
Stabilized movement is so important, and everything you do on your back translates to standing over time in larger, more complex movements. So just looking at standing, this is such an important exercise in and of itself; we can feel those deep muscles when we're standing correctly. Now let's add the second most important movement into that: walking. This is crucial just for standing and walking, and these are important life movements.
All right, here. So let's take it back. Just let's recap about what we talked today. We talked about stabilization and touched upon the importance of both shoulder stability and ribcage stability when it comes to using and moving our arms. We also talked about pelvic stability and we talked about moving the pelvis and then progressing to stabilize movement using the legs and the importance of your breath, scoop, focus, and concentration in all of this, creating a deeper connection between the mind and body and leading to more control.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful. Remember, we do new episodes every week on Wednesday, and I look forward to having you join me then.
