Can doing Pilates in the water be effective?  Listen to today's episode and get all of the answers you need and more!

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Show Notes:

1. The crossover and benefits of combining Pilates and water exercises.

2. An explanation of the vital importance of understanding how to work in water and integrating Pilates effectively.

3. Detailed explanation of the specific protocols for practicing aquatic based Pilates, such as centering and stabilization work, spinal movement, footwork and armwork series, plank and suspension work.

4. The potential challenges and differences of exercising in water compared to on land.

5. The integration of the three out of the four pillars of pain-free movement in aquatic Pilates, excluding the fascia release which is more effective on land.

6. Concluding thoughts on the importance of understanding and applying the principles of aquatic based Pilates.

Key Takeaways:

• Benefits: Natural resistance, buoyancy support, improved balance, gait, posture, and overall body strength and control are among the many benefits of aquatic based Pilates.

• Applicability: A broad range of people can benefit from aquatic based Pilates, including water enthusiasts, land-based Pilates practitioners, and those participating in water-based physical therapy.

• Techniques and Protocols: Cari has developed specific protocols for practicing aquatic based Pilates. These include using buoyancy equipment, working on centering, stabilization, spinal movement, footwork, and armwork series, and plank and suspension work.

• Fascia Release: The three pillars of pain-free movement (centering, stabilization, and mobility) can be integrated into aquatic based Pilates. However, fascia release is more suited for land-based exercise.

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 talking about pilates and bringing it to the water, or what I call aquatic based pilates.

Now, I love the water, and I love pilates, so it just made sense to me to work on combining them and actually began doing this about 22 years ago, and it has evolved so much since then. There's a lot of crossover between pilates and the work in the water, and they both can be very safe for the body and the joints. For me, I have a great understanding and many years of experience teaching pilates, but also a great understanding of what's involved in working in the water. And this is through many years of study, training, teaching, application, as well as even teaching other fitness professionals.

So when we talk about pilates and mixing it with the water, what's really important to understand is both how to work in the water as well as have an understanding of what you're trying to achieve with the pilates based work in the water, because it's a very different modality altogether. And what works on land may not work so well in the water. The whole goal is to take advantage of the amazing benefits of the water and make the most use of them, as opposed to trying to make something work in the water that really doesn't. Which, unfortunately, I've seen a lot of this happen over the years in many different ways, and none of it has ever made any sense to me.

So there are many benefits, when done correctly, of doing aquatic based pilates. First off, the water is supportive. It has natural resistance for the body to work against. There's buoyancy in water, the buoyancy provides support for the body, and there's even a greater clearance rate of lactic acid from our working muscles while being in the water, so we have a little less soreness. It's a great place to be. As I've talked about before, with those with inflammation or joint issues as well, doing aquatic based pilates is excellent for improving balance, gait, posture, as well as building overall strength and control over your own body.

Now, who would I consider to be a good fit for this type of work? Well, many people. But let me give some examples specifically on what I've seen over the years. First off, if you love the water or you're a swimmer, or maybe you take water aerobics, water walk, or do deep water running, aquatic based pilates could be an excellent fit for you. If you're already doing some type of pilates on land, this may offer another avenue to explore. If you're a water lover or if you own a pool or endless pool, this is an excellent option for you. Or if you're doing physical therapy in the water, aquatic based pilates can work well in addition to this. Now, I guess the only prerequisite for all these things is that you must like the water.

Now let's get into this. How is pilates actually done in the water? And this is I'm speaking in terms of how I best found it to be done in the water over the years. Now, you should really begin in the shallow and this is where most of the work really should be done. Why? Because you have more control in the deeper water, you don't have as much of control initially. So waist level water, chest level water is good. Most of the time you're working in a standing position, which is great for the body and very different than doing some of the therapeutic pilates on land. And it's a great way to work on balance and feeling your body in a standing position, as well as working on walking and gait.

So after playing with this for some time, I have actually developed different protocols for this type of work. And I'm going to share a little bit about that right now. So we're going to start with one of the key components to this aquatic base pilates work, and that is stabilization and centering work. And that's where I start in the water with everybody. And yes, it does involve an understanding of the scoop, which is that very important fundamental skill that we talked about in another episode, which is used to connect your breath and your center.

So with centering and stabilization work, I found it useful in the water to use buoyancy equipment. And this could be in the form of a noodle or a kickboard or foam dumbbells. And actually I prefer to use the foam dumbbells because you can separate them and so forth. However, I need to say that when you're using the buoyancy equipment, it's going to be done in a very different way. It's not like, let's say, for example, if you're familiar with the water aerobics, it's not in the same way. In fact, shoulder stability is of utmost importance, just like on land. So you're not going to be really forcing the buoyancy underwater, you're going to be using it to contract your muscles against in a slightly different manner.

And we'll do this in place, we'll do this while walking and we add movement, stabilize movement, which goes back to our foundation, which is extremely important. So it's an excellent place to work on this. And it's so awesome that you get to stand while you're doing everything. We also need to incorporate, and I incorporate spinal movement and we need to go through all the movements of our spine, unless, of course, there is a contraindication. For example, let's say you have stenosis. Then we'll avoid extension or whatever the issue is. But in general, we can get all these movements into our spine in the water very nicely.

Then we have what I call the footwork series. And this is excellent because now we're working with the premise of the foot and the foot relates to everything. The ball of the foot relates to the front of the knee, to the pelvis, the heel to the back line, muscles of the legs, to the tailbone and glutes. And we're going to be challenging that foot, heel connection, ball of the foot connection, heel connection, all the way up through the knees and hips. So it's very good for strengthening these areas.

Standing leg work, a little different than footwork, is a wonderful way to begin to challenge your balance even more, gain more control over your body and your center. And eventually, as I'm working with someone and they're getting stronger, we actually add in more resistance in the form of a leg blade. And there are several different leg blades that exist and I've kind of chosen the one that seems to be the most productive while working in the water.

So we also have the armwork series and we don't use buoyancy for this, but rather initially I have people use what's called an aquatic glove and it's neoprene based most of the time. It's a little thicker and it's going to provide a little more of a challenge for working our center, working the whole body and specifically the arms. I love this series. It's wonderful. And as you progress, again, we can move into an arm blade. And again, I found one that I like and recommend depending on the person and it's going to provide more of a challenge. Now, there are pieces of the standing leg work and arm work series where we're challenging our whole body and really we're working on center based strength in the water at this point.

Now, when we move into doing work, for example, the planks and suspension portion, this is a little bit more advanced and this work is really good to do once you've done and worked through the other skill sets, in my opinion. And again, the water is a wonderful place to work on the plank and centering while being mindful about stability. So it's a great place to work on building up even more strength.

Doing suspension exercises are a great way to be impact free and provide a different challenge for the body. However, you are going to need more control and having already gotten that, getting that feel in the shallow water, I think is key.

Now, you also can get in all of your mobility stretches. Yes, you can stretch in the water, too. It's a wonderful place to do this. And I typically recommend using different degrees of buoyancy equipment to support the body. And you can release tension in the legs, hips, backs, arms, shoulders, all in the water.

So, as you can see here in talking through the aquatic based pilates method, at least three out of the four pillars of pain free movement are integrated into this work. The only one that we can't really integrate is the fascia release, and that's really better done on land. It's a little harder to do in the water, although you could.

So just to recap, today we talked about taking pilates to the water in the form of what I call aquatic based pilates. We talked about the importance of understanding how to work in the water and integrate pilates with the intention of being on using the benefits of being in the water to enhance this work. We also talked about how this is done by examining the specific protocols that I've developed.

So I really hope that you've 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.