Pilates Breathing technique and Pelvic floor exercises

Starting position: Start staring bid toes together with a gap between your heels the size of your finger. Push your knees together and shift the weight forward until ones toes clench the floor, yoga style. Lengthen through the spine from the sacrum to the nape of the neck. Pull the chin down into the through as if you were holding and egg, Pilates style.

Engaging the pilates breathing technique we start with the breathing to feed and relax the muscles. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. The inhale and exhale the same length of time and force. In pilates the objective is to, as we inhale, aim to send the air to the back of the rib cage. Feel the ribs expand and as we exhale. Joseph pilates encouraged an exhale that, without contracting the muscles, pushed out the air from the bottom of the stomach, letting the abdominals flatten.

10 breaths are recommended and if you can closing the eyes, it often helps the concentration and aids the relaxation process. Pilates and Yoga both are known to help de-stress the body and mind. The breathing technique is one of the elements that assists in this process.

Once our abdominal muscles and rig cage is warm we engage the abdominals lightly and hold for the rest of the pilates and yoga stretching series. Again adopting the pilates principles as the core engagement will help to protect the spine during the pilates and yoga workout.

Next we engage the pelvis floor muscle, pulling the pelvic floor muscles up as we exhale until it is situated just below the bladder. On the inhale release these muscles down slowly. It is recommended to leave the pelvic floor muscles engaged during a pilates and yoga class (in yoga the pelvic floor muscles is called the bungees) This can be difficult for many beginners and intermediate pilates and yoga practitioners so it is recommended to start with engaging the pelvic floor muscles on the exhale. It is important to relax the gluteus during these contractions.

For more information about our pilates classes come and pop in to our centrally located barcelona based studio or contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible