Clinical Pilates

Clinical Pilates is a specific and personalised form of Pilates designed to aid your recovery from pain and injury as well as optimising movement and athletic performance.

Clinical Pilates is unique to everyone’s body type, condition/injury/dysfunction, and age. Our equipment and programming is designed to challenge your body in a safe but effective manner.

At Impulse Chiropractic, our Clinical Pilates is focused on enhancing strength, stability, mobility, and flexibility. This is achieved through a combination of reformer Pilates and matwork Pilates exercises.

An essential component of Clinical Pilates is that all sessions are carried out by experienced Chiropractors that have extensive knowledge of the human body and movement, as well as pain and injury.

This knowledge and understanding helps you to be able to participate in safe and effective exercise, reducing the risk of re-injury or aggravation whilst achieving optimal results.

Reformer Pilates

At Impulse Chiropractic, we offer 1:1 Reformer Pilates sessions that are designed specifically for you.

Reformer Pilates is a form of Pilates that uses a reformer machine. The use of the reformer machine broadens the scope of exercises that can be performed in Pilates due to the features and attachments of the reformer. It also allows us to progress or regress through many more variations of movements and all areas of the body can be targeted. Reformer Pilates caters for beginners through to the most advanced of Pilates participants.

Matwork Pilates

At Impulse Chiropractic, we also offer 1:1 and 2: 1 matwork Pilates sessions.

As the name suggests, matwork Pilates mostly involves bodyweight-based exercises carried out on a mat. In this form of Pilates, we use a number of small pieces of equipment to either help assist a movement or muscle activation, to help stabilise part of the body, or to help progress or regress the difficulty of the exercise.

As with reformer, matwork caters to individuals of all types. Many of the exercises work through various levels ranging from beginner to advanced. Compared to reformer Pilates, matwork has less variation in the types of exercises that can be performed. Matwork Pilates predominantly focuses on the core area, whereas reformer can target all areas of the body.

There are many reasons people engage in a Clinical Pilates program, here are some of the benefits of Clinical Pilates:

Enhanced core stability and posture
Pain management
Improved core muscle control
Repairing and retraining movement patterns
Increased strength
Increase mobility and flexibility
Improved balance and stability
Prevention of future or reoccurring injuries
Enhance athletic function and performance
Pre and post operative rehabilitation
General health, fitness, and well-being
It is a safe form of post-natal exercise

Clinical Pilates vs Studio Pilates

The main difference between Clinical Pilates and Studio Pilates is that in Clinical Pilates, the exercises and movements are tailored specifically to your body, type of injury and level of fitness.

Before participating in Clinical Pilates, each person will undergo a detailed musculoskeletal assessment to determine what areas need to be focused on. The sessions are typically designed to help improve your injury or dysfunction.

Each exercise is dedicated to working towards a particular goal. For example, part of the reason you may have low back pain is because you have poor recruitment of your glute muscles and hip extension movement pattern.

Therefore, the exercises we prescribe will aim to improve this particular dysfunction to hopefully improve your low back pain. Clinical Pilates sessions are also taken in a 1:1 or 2:1 format, so you will be closely monitored throughout the session.

In Studio Pilates, the exercise programming is typically more generalised to the wider population. The sessions are designed to improve overall fitness, strength and stability. The sessions won’t necessarily cater to your needs, and you may come across some exercises that will be beyond your physical capabilities either due to your injury or fitness level. This isn’t to say that it isn’t good for you or not a good way to do Pilates. We suggest that you first go through a Clinical Pilates program to determine which movements you should and shouldn’t do before engaging in a studio group class.

Which is better…Pilates or Yoga??

This is a question as a clinician, that we are regularly asked by patients. The answer is not as straightforward as just Pilates or Yoga. One is not necessarily better than the other or you shouldn’t just only do one or the other. The short answer is, they’re both great and they will both be of great benefit to you if practiced regularly. In an ideal world, do both!!

The questions you really need to be asking is, what does my body need? What are my physical goals? What will be best for my type of pain or injury? Finding this information out will help give you a clear idea of which exercise will best target these questions. We can help guide you into what style of exercise or combinations of exercise would suit your body best.

Pilates and Yoga are quite different in several ways. They are both based on different theories and philosophies. They both involve different movements and styles of exercise. They both target different aspects of the body in different ways. Our recommendation: both are great ways to exercise and everyone would benefit from a combination of having both forms of exercise in their lives on a regular basis.

For further information, or to consult with one of our skilled Chiropractors you can use the Contact or Book Online now buttons at the top of this page, call our North Curl Curl practice on (02) 9939 8817, or visit Impulse Chiropractic & Natural Therapies‘ state of the art Chiropractic clinic at 15/64 Pitt Road in North Curl Curl.

Clinical Pilates