How to improve your figure with Pilates

The single most important thing you must do to start improving your shape with Pilates is to improve your posture! Weakness in the postural muscles will cause your upper body to stoop forwards, this will cause your head to drift forwards, round your shoulders and inhibit the abdominal muscles from working, as demonstrated by this image:

You can also appreciate how this person might end up with neck, shoulder, upper and lower back pain! Clinical Pilates takes a whole body approach to strengthening. As a physiotherapist I see this posture type day in day out. I also know as a physiotherapist which muscles will need targeting to improve this posture and shape. Unfortunately just working the abdominals won't create a good shape, you need to work on the whole body. Many of my patients are under the impression that to achieve a good figure with Pilates it is all about toning the abdominals. Thats not the case! Strengthening the postural muscles is where you need to start. Allow your posture to improve first then get working on toning. My posture improver workouts are a great place to start if you want to start improving your shape and figure with Pilates. I would advice using these along side the sculpt and tone workouts for best results. If you need any advice please do not hesitate to email me lyndsay@yourpilatesphysio.com