Tags

,

Have you heard Osteoporosis being called ‘The Silent Killer’?  For many women (and men) there are often no outward signs that they have osteoporosis until they suffer their first fracture.  According to the National Osteoporosis Society almost one in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 will suffer a broken bone, mainly due to poor bone health. 

I hope you’re shocked by these statistics.  I certainly was when I read them for the first time.  I had to double check with the society, but they are there on their website in black and white.

What is osteoporosis?  It’s a disease of the bones.  I like to think of bones as being holey cheese.  They have a strong outside but on the inside are holes.  If we build up our strength as children and young adults doing lots of weight bearing exercises such as football, dancing, netball etc the holes are few and far between.  However, as we age, the holes get bigger and you can see that the chance of the bones fracturing becomes much greater.

There are many risk factors for osteoporosis but the majority of people that I teach who have osteoporosis are those that have digestive disorders such as coeliac disease, that are cancer survivors or who are in my older client age range, but this is not exclusively the case.

Whilst I love Pilates as a form of exercise it really isn’t suitable for everyone, particularly in a class situation.  There are 34 exercises in the Classical Repertoire, that is often regarded as the pinnacle of Pilates achievement and, of those, only maybe 2 or 3 aren’t contraindicated for someone with osteoporosis.

Does that mean that someone who has osteoporosis shouldn’t attend Pilates classes?  Far from it!  There are many exercises (okay, not in the Classical Repertoire) that are fine for someone with osteoporosis and that they will derive benefit from.

A couple of years ago, faced with a client newly diagnosed with osteoporosis in a class full of people steadily working their way towards the Classical exercises I suggested to The Letchworth Centre that I run a class full of exercises derived from Pilates but suitable for those with osteoporosis and the ‘Pilates designed for Osteoporosis’ class was born.

How does it differ from regular Pilates classes?

We do exercises to improve our balance.  Balance is something that we often lose as we get older and, if we don’t fall, we are less likely to put our hand out to catch ourselves which often results in a broken wrist in someone who has osteoporosis. 

We do exercises to strengthen our bones, for example in the wrist.  The aim of these is to encourage the bone builders in our body to rebuild our bones quicker than the bone cleaners can destroy it (bone building/bone cleaning happens in everyone’s body). 

We do more exercises to strengthen the muscles in our upper backs.  Have you seen anyone with a ‘widow’s hump?’  We don’t want to be one of those people; we want to make sure that we are standing with great posture regardless of age.

We avoid any contraindicated exercises, whether this is lying down, lifting both legs from the floor at the same time or the forward flexion movements such as rounding your spine to do a ‘sit up’ type exercise.

If you have osteoporosis and would like to learn how to exercise safely then contact me on 07812 078967 or Julia@pilateswithjulia.com

 

Julia Crossman is a Body Control certified instructor with additional qualifications in Reformer, Cadillac, Chair, low back pain and osteoporosis.

 

All text is Copyright 2012 Julia Crossman, BCPA, Level 4 Low Back Pain www.pilateswithjulia.com