Endometriosis Pilates

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Ashley Ludman with Seaside Yoga, here to talk a little bit about Endometriosis Pilates. And in essence, these are two different things. Endometriosis is a physical condition that affects the feminine reproductive system especially the uterine wall and the surrounding areas. So, this condition may result in abdominal pain, low back pain and pelvic pain. How Pilates might help with this is creating support in this area so you're gaining strength and gaining greater range of motion within the area of the lower spine, the pelvis and the hips. And I'll demonstrate just a few different exercises that might help you to gain some of that comfort. So just beginning on your back, bringing your hands to your lower belly. Let your belly just become hollow so that the breath moves more into the upper rib cage, the wide part of the ribs and the back. So you're pulling the breath up into the lungs rather than into the belly. Then as you exhale, engage the pelvic floor and lower belly so that the pelvis is stable. And we're just going to march up and down. So you'll lift one knee up and then lower it down, making sure that you're not letting the pelvis go from side to side, or rock forward and back. So there's stability through the pelvis. And that's stability comes from the engagement of your lower core muscles. And so you'll just do this a few times, and it looks, it looks simple but it might be a little bit more challenging just to pay attention to see if you're really stabilizing the pelvis. Once you get that, if you're about to go a little bit further, you can lift both knees up, hold that, hold the stability of the pelvis so that your pelvis doesn't tip forward like this, creating a little bit too much curve of the lumbar spine. So you're drawing in from the lower belly. Then you'll lift up with your head and then you can do into single leg stretches. So in essence, the single leg stretch helps to provide more circulation through the area of the pelvic core as you're stabilizing. You're breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose and out through the mouth. You can do this for about five to ten repetitions and you may feel a little greater awareness around the pelvic area, greater strength and greater circulation. And hopefully that will help you to decrease some of the symptoms of Endometriosis. And that might be how you combine these two Endometriosis and Pilates to gain some benefit."