Scolio-Pilates

Where’s your weight sitting?

Toes, ball of the foot, or heel? In this clip from the Scolio-Pilates® Foundation Program, we’re finding your natural foot pressure point, one of the small details that changes everything about how you stand.

✦ Rock forward onto the balls of the feet, then back onto the heels
✦ Notice which one feels awkward. That’s usually not where you naturally hang out
✦ Shrink that sway smaller and smaller until you land right over the middle of the arch

From there we check the knees. Not locked, not bent, just long. Elongate up through the top of the head and you shouldn’t feel the urge to throw the knees back. If you do, the chest tips forward and the head follows.

It sounds simple. It isn’t always. Watch it more than once, things will sink in. We absolutely promise.

Comment FOUNDATION to get started 🧡

What are you working on right now for your Scoliosis?

We’ve all got different goals and even different niggles in our bodies when exercising with Scoliosis and Spinal Fusion. We’d love to know what you’re focused on right now!

Our Scolio model here is working on some shoulder strength and stabilisation to get on top of a “wobbly” feeling shoulder for a while.

Taking it back to basics we are working for some more recruitment in the serratus anterior muscles, which has been quite tricky on the L side that before fusion was a considerable thoracic concavity.

ScolioPilates®️ teaches us to use breath work and expand the ribcage, which helps give the scapula a nicer surface to glide on.

The alignment of the head and neck is also super important after spinal fusion, we want to work in a nice lengthened plumb-line and not to feel like the head tips forward of the body. This also makes strengthening the muscles in the upper back and shoulders a little more honest.

Share below what you’re focused on right now with your own body, we’d love to start the conversation!

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ScolioPilates®️ “Sunning Sea Lion” 💚🔩
A variety show!

The Sunning Sea Lion is great because it teaches us how to lie on the thoracic concavity and lift the lumbar convexity. It provides a perfect opportunity to explore some side-lying strengthening exercises like the hip-abduction here (leg lifts)

On the Mat 🧘🏻‍♀️
- This is accessible from anywhere, you don’t need equipment
- See how adding a theraband however can help provide a “destination” for the leg to press into.
- Or standing against a wall closes the chain and makes the proprioception easier. This is key if you’re hypermobile and more focused on alignment

The Pilates Cadillac 🏋️
- This offers some resistance, again some lovely feedback to press into
- The bars close the chain for the upper body

The Pilates Reformer 🤸🏼‍♀️
- A nice place for feedback but also to start increasing load if you’re trying to strengthen the hip muscles

What if you can’t lie down? 🙋‍♂️
Sometimes it’s daunting to get right down to the floor, or maybe a hip bursitis is stopping you from lying on your side

We can do the same movement standing!

ScolioPilates can be done anywhere

360° Breathwork with Scoliosis, Spinal Fusion and other Spinal Conditions 💚🔩

Ribs are 3-Dimensional and wonderfully mobile so your breath work is a very powerful tool when exercising with scoliosis.

Hypokyphosis - This happens when a person loses the natural flexion (forward bend) of the thoracic spine, you might have heard it called “flatback”
This is a common one with scoliosis, some theories suggest older models of bracing have a part to play but that’s not true for everyone

Thoracic Scoliosis - is a spinal curvature that exists in the upper back. The thoracic spine connects into the ribs so people with a curve in their upper back might also notice asymmetry in their ribcage

Finding the ability to expand the ribcage posteriorly can be really helpful to open up the concavities in scoliosis and to help unlock the upper back of a person who might otherwise be locked in a bit of thoracic extension

The band across the ribcage gives great feedback to feel where that movement should be directed