One of the biggest areas of interest in the Pilates field today, is the claim of how great the Pilates work is in dealing with injuries. While it can help significantly with chronic pain and injury rehabilitation, that was not Joseph Pilates’ primary intention. Joe was about the complete awareness and control of the body. Thus his name for his work, “Contrology”. “Contrology”, now known of course as Pilates, can be very effective in the arena of injury rehabilitation because of its focus on creating movement patterns in the body that enhance and support the body’s incredible ability to heal itself. The body is better equipped to heal itself than any external modality, except in cases of extreme injury and disease, it is miraculous in its ability to repair itself. So why does this miraculous process not always happen? Why are millions of people living in some degree of pain and/or lack of function? I do not have the medical qualifications to answer that question, but I can say that after nearly 20 years of studying, watching and teaching people how to use their bodies, in the way it was designed to move, that a great number of the issues that people suffer from come simply from the misuse of movement. Not on purpose, of course, but rather because we never learned how our body was suppose to move. The nature of life, in this day and age, has led to less movement throughout the day and greater stretches of time in which our bodies remain virtually still. Our bodies don’t like to be a one position for an extended period of time. Yet the less we move, the harder it becomes to move and the more pain we experience, because of our lack of movement, the more inclined we are to move even less! This is a tough cycle to break! Our bodies become afraid to move, because when we do, we hurt even more! How do we get better from here? Find a great Pilates teacher and courage. Because make no mistake, it takes courage to learn to trust moving again, when your experiences have taught you that movement hurts. Through specific lessons on how to bring the body back into its ideal functioning posture, relearning and restoring correct movement patterns, many “chronic” pain patterns can be relieved. It’s not magic or medicine. It’s just helping the body to get back on line so that it can take care of itself and you can get back to enjoying your life!
