Reducing Muscle Pain With Pilates

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Ashley Ludman, from Seaside Yoga, here to address the question how do I reduce muscle pain when I'm practicing Pilates? Well first of all, muscle pain and cramping specifically can tell you that you're overworking a muscle. One of the concepts of Pilates is precise movement, incorporating specific muscle control in specific ways so that the efficiency and the fluidity of your movement is present during the exercises. So I'm going to demonstrate one exercise which is done face down. So as you lie face down and come up to your forearms and extend your legs, and instead of pointing your toes hard and pointing from your toes, what you may find; that that promotes muscle cramping. Soften and spread your toes and press the tops of your feet to the floor. Instead of kicking your hip from your heel, you'll actually engage your glute and your hamstring at the top of the hamstring. Keep the foot soft. So notice how I'm not hard pointing at the foot, but there's some spread in between the toes. So I engage my hamstring and glute to create the action, instead of engaging the the foot muscles in the toes, and then I'll do the same thing on the other side; soften and spread the toes, create length through the ankle, and then engage from the glute and the hamstring. So, you'll do that a few times. This is, this is one of the exercises that will get most people if they're overworking their feet. In Pilates, you want to work from your core, and if you're working too hard from the external peripheral muscles you'll feel that. You'll feel it through cramps. When you notice a cramp take a break, pause, soften that muscle, reconnect with your core and that should take care of it. So that is how you eliminate muscle cramps or muscle fatigue through the practice of Pilates."