Pilates... with an injury

Summer is the time for injuries.  If your like me, you get one every year.  This year, it was a broken wrist, last year a sprained ankle, the year before dislocated collar bone...  Summer is the time we're active after a long winter cooped up inside.  It's expected that a few of us will over do it.  Below are some quick and easy modification so that you too can stay active, even injured.


MODIFY: To change an exercise to make it accessible to you.

Certain Pilates exercises are modified for ability, but you can also modify for injury.  A nice example is plank.  Obviously this will not be done on hands if you have a broken wrist.  A nice modified version is to place down your forearms instead.  This is nicer to the wrists and hands and disperses the weight more evenly throughout the arm.  If you are experiencing difficulty with toes, drop down to your knees.  If you are experiencing knee issues or lower back, feel free to take the plank to the wall.  Hands/forearms go against the wall.  The feet are as far away as you can support.  The closer together the legs, the harder the exercise.

Another option is to simply invert the exercise.  A common exercise we do in Pilates is in the all 4's position.  Opposite arm and leg extend at the same time maintaining your alignment in the back, shoulders and hips.  A nice way to make this accessible to knee injuries and wrist injuries would be to flip it.

Instead of being in the all 4's position, you can lay on your back with knees in table top and arms to the ceiling.  Opposite arm and leg reach away while the pelvis and ribs maintain neutral.  These exercises are identical.  Simply rotate the picture to see for yourself.  The flipped version may even feel harder at first since the floor provides nice feedback to feel your form.

Equipment can be harder to modify, although there are both ankle and wrist straps available depending on your studio.  In case those are not an option, you can use a yoga strap to help connect you to things like the roll down bar or the other straps.  Simply tighten the yoga strap both around your arm and the equipment.  You can also use the strap for climbing a tree or open leg rocker to help connect the leg to the arm.

If you are using equipment and it hurts to have your legs resting on the mat, simply let them dangle off the sides during tower.  You can also let them rest over a barrel instead of placing the feet directly onto the floor.  Try a lighter weight for footwork or feet in straps before omitting completely.  Sometimes just taking down the weight can make the exercise accessible.

Range of motion exercises, or ROM is a nice alternative for when certain exercises like rowing or footwork just don't work.  They can feel boring and easy, but ROM is so important. ROM exercises will give you the same muscle recruitment without any chance of injury.  It keeps you moving and makes it so you are less stiff when healed.  Most important, it helps maintaing circulation through the extremities.

At any point you feel pain while performing any exercise (even ROM), STOP IMMEDIATELY!  It's one thing to stay active while injured.  It's a totally different thing to cause trauma to an injury.  The ultimate goal is to help the healing process by integrating Pilates exercises to the best that they can be performed.  This is what Joseph (Pilates) did when he was in the prisoner of war camps with his German comrades.  That's what gave birth to the first piece of equipment ever invented; the Cadillac.  This was basically a hospital bed with springs to enable the injured to exercise.

Exercise leads to better circulation which can then lead to healing faster. Just know how far is too far and be sure to listen to your body!