How Pilates Instructors Build Body Awareness

Usually, when people think of Pilates or exercising in general, they connect it with enhancing physical attributes, such as core stability, strength, fitness, or flexibility. Yet, natural physical movement requires a healthy connection between your muscles and your brain. 

As simple as it sounds, it is very common for some injury or pain to disturb your once easy-going movement quality. Great exercise gets you to focus, think, and listen to your body. Moreover, it also inspires you to come back for more. Let’s talk about how you can work on your body awareness with Pilates. 

Tips To Improve Your Body Awareness With Pilates

Use Closed Chain Exercises

These are exercises in which your feet or hands are fixed on the mat. This results in a compound movement of other joints up the kinetic chain. These types of movements load more joints and engage more muscles in contrast to the open exercises. Open chain exercises are the ones where the ends of your body parts or joints are freely moving in the space. The closed-chain exercises involve a stability or balance component, which helps you reach your goals. If you need assistance from experienced Pilates teachers then feel free to reach out to the experts at Pilates Nosara. 

Destabilize

A bit unstable surface causes micro-movement in muscles and joints, which activate more proprioceptors in an attempt to help maintain stability. Try exercises standing on your leg or remove support bases (quadruped to arm-leg reach). You can also include props, such as a Swiss ball, wobble board, foam roller, sit fit, or any other destabilizing surface if you are up for it. And, if you are taking online sessions from home and do not have any equipment at home, you can work with yoga mats, blankets, and towels to make the surface less stable. 

Take A Sense Organ Out Of The Equation

Having your eyes closed helps your brain to focus as there is one less sense to get in the way. Moreover, closing the eyes also cuts down the stability, needing more small joint motions to maintain equilibrium. You can take Pilates teacher training to refine your skills and add more to your experience. 

Slow It Down And Break It Down

This strategy enhances the available time for the brain to register minor changes in limb position, muscle tension, and tissue stretch. Slowing down an exercise means that you can pay attention to how you are performing the movement, not only getting the movement done. Splitting down difficult exercises into smaller bits will help you pay more attention to the specific actions and all your core parts needed for each stage of the exercise. 

Repetition And More Repetition

One of the most important factors in Pilates teacher training is practice. Efficient and coordinated movements require many repetitions. You can perform exercises in many different manners, i.e., standing, eyes closed, seated, or on a Reformer. Make meaningful movements so that you can practice them on a daily basis. 

Make It Fun

It is proven that people learn better in a relaxed environment, we cannot take in new information if we are under stress. Making movement creative and playful helps you involve more muscles, joints, and body parts. This contributes to a better workout overall. The best part? You will enjoy these exercises more if they are fun. The expert instructors at Pilates Nosara do their best to make these challenging exercises fun for their clients. 

Concluding Thoughts

All in all, expert Pilates teachers aim to boost their client’s ability to sense which body part they are engaging in and how they are moving it. If you make slower movements and use the above-given strategies to challenge yourselves, you will engage your body in a better manner. Make sure you do not stop having fun while performing these movements, in this way, you will improve your body awareness while enjoying the process.