Here’s an exercise I love to do with my golfers to help to emphasize upper and lower separation, work on the oblique abdominals, and work on control of the acceleration/deceleration of the pelvis. All that’s required is a rotating disc. Each one may be purchased for under $50. My favorite ones are from Balanced Body. Here is my affiliate link to their site: http://tinyurl.com/BBPilates
The quadriped is a basic exercise, but very fundamental for understanding how to organize the body for posture and for sports. After a brief description of how to find your neutral or optimal spine, this video will take you through a few variations of the quadriped exercise. As usual, please check with your health care professional before starting a new exercise program as not all exercises are appropriate for all bodies.
If you’re a golfer, this few minutes may be worth your time to give you some simple movements & exercises you can use as a golf warm up or as just a posture check to make sure you are in the optimal alignment for movement.
Equipment needed: Golf club or dowel
Ada Wells, PT describes the importance of shoulder mobility and shoulder girdle stability in the golf swing and demonstrates exercises to improve these areas.
This video is one of a series of videos which show you creative ways to use the Sae Arc family of products to improve flexibility in the spine, neck, hips, legs, and feet as well as using them for performing movement control and balance exercises.
For more information on where to purchase a Sae Arc goto:
http://probalancept.com/pb/online-store
Disclaimer: Remember that this video is for informational purposes only and not intended to be a substitute for consulting a medical professional in person. Please consult your physician prior to starting a new exercise program.
In this podcast, you will learn exercises which are helpful to improve pelvic control and hip mobility with your golfers using the Pilates.
For people who want to boost their fat burning during a Pilates session, we suggest you ask your instructor about integrating interval training into your workout. We have a great, portable piece of equipment called the X-iser (http://tinyurl.com/xiser60) that is a low impact way to reproduce a running motion which is easy on the knees and on the spine and works on balance as well as getting a killer workout. While the X-iser looks like those cheap mini-steppers you see on infomercials, it is far from that. It is a very well made machine designed specifically for sprint interval training.
What works great within our studio is to do a short Pilates warm up then 60 seconds on the X-iser. The goal is to go all out like a sprint so that at the end of 60 seconds, you don’t have enough energy to go any longer. After that sprint, we do a minimum 4 minute recovery of more Pilates exercises, integrating flexibility, movement retraining, toning, and then we repeat that cycle 3 more times during the session.
The result: a cardio/fat blasting session combined with the toning, flexibility, and core strengthening Pilates session that will improve how well you move, how long you can move, how much can you move, and how good you’ll look while you move.
Want a refresher on how to some of the exercises given to you for your home exercise program?
If you log onto http://www.youtube.com and write “probalancept” in the search box, you’ll discover many of the most common basic exercises I give to patients and clients as part of their home exercise program. Keep checking back as the number of exercises in this “library” will continue to grow.
One key to good posture is to position the pelvis so that the spine is in optimal alignment. The pelvic clock exercise is ideal for finding this neutral pelvis position.
Set up: Lie on your back with your knees bent. “Lengthen” the back of your neck, “widen” your collar bones, and slide your shoulder blades back and down. Place the heels of your hands on your front pelvic bones, letting your thumbs aim towards your navel and your middle fingers point down towards your opposite feet. This forms the rim of your “pelvic bowl”.
Exercise: Imagine that your bowl is half full of water, your head is 12:00, and your feet are 6:00. Gently “pour” the water towards 12:00 then “pour” towards 6:00, not letting the water go over the rim of the bowl. Return the bowl to the middle position, which is a neutral pelvis position. Repeat this motion 3 times then continue in other diagonals of your clock (3 to 9, 2 to 8, 10 to 4, etc), always coming back to the neutral position. Make sure to maintain good upper body posture throughout the exercise and breathe. Remember to consult a health care professional prior to initiating a new exercise program.
We are currently in the process of putting together a large series of Pilates based exercises that can be referenced by current ProBalance clients and patients as well as the general public. Stay tuned.
ProBalance Physical Therapy & Pilates Blog 