My Yogilates
Practice and Classes

by Mia DeLight

Some Background »

My partner Kevin and I have been running Yogilates classes in our home for the last couple of years. It’s a lot of fun and very rewarding.

Kevin has been teaching Yoga for more than 30 years, but together we have worked out an awesome program, which incorporates Yoga and Pilates and therefore we call it Yogilates.

Kevin had been plagued by a back injury which was caused by years of over stretching in yoga. This is in fact quite common amongst yoga teachers and yoga practitioners. Because yoga is a system that originates in the East, where people are generally more flexible and used to a less sedentary life style, us Westerners have to be really careful as we start practicing yoga. We in the Western countries have a great challenge even trying to sit on the floor, so standing on our heads or trying the Lotus position in a beginners yoga class is madness to me.  When Kevin came across Pilates, he found that it provided “the missing link”, and this is the core strength which will make your back strong and protect you from injuries.

The combination of yoga with pilates, gives a perfect balance of flexibility and core strength. It combines the postural, stretching and breathing benefits of yoga with the toning and strengthening benefits of pilates. Yogilates targets alignment, breathing, flexibility and strength — a wonderful, safe workout. It also works wonders with focusing the mind, as you have to be very aware of every movement and work with the breathing system the whole time which makes it quite meditative.

Our students are all ages and fitness levels. The youngest we take at the moment is 15 and we have a 75 year old coming to us weekly. Many come to us because they have injuries or back or shoulder problems, and they have been sent to us by their osteopath, physio or doctor. We have been happy to see many positive changes in our students and that is so very rewarding.

When I met Kevin, only 3 years ago, I was very unfit and inflexible myself. I was a golf player, but was very often troubled by injuries, so I would have months when I couldn’t really do any exercising, owing to back, neck and shoulder problems, knee pain etc. I even had a heel spur which immobilized me for weeks. Now, I am totally free of all that and I am nearly as flexible as I was when I was 12 years old! Isn’t that amazing?

Ouch! My Back!

You might think that inflexibility, injuries and various kinds of pain in the body mainly happens as we get older, but that is really not so. The bulk of our students are youngish, some have been injured in accidents etc, but most have problems because of bad posture and exercise habits that aren’t giving their bodies a balanced work out. Running, tennis and golf are some examples. The runners and athletes are usually the ones with extremely tight hamstrings, which then in turn give back problems and bad posture. The golf and tennis players often have back, hip, knee and shoulder injuries. Of course this happens when we repeat movements which are “one sided” over and over again… This is fine if we combine our sport with a good stretching and strengthening regime. But many don’t think of this until they get really bad problems and have to give up their sports because of it… I was an example of this myself. Now I haven’t had the desire to go back to the tennis and golf playing, but if I did, I am sure my body would cope much better.

Of course posture problems are also a result of our life style and sitting around too much without stretching.

A Posture Checking Tip

A lot of back, neck and shoulder problems are caused by bad posture. You can easily check your posture by standing hard up against a wall. The natural curve in your spine should leave a little gap between your waist and the wall. That gap should only be wide enough for your flat hand. If you can get your whole fist in there you might have a sway back and if you don’t have a gap you are likely to have a so called flat back.

Flat Backs Or Slump Posture

Runners and athletes often have flat backs. That is caused by tight ham strings (the back of the thighs) and a pelvis that is tucked under too much because of it. Rounded, tight shoulders and a very stiff neck usually go with this as well. We teach a number of exercises that help remedy these problems. One, that can be done at home for the hamstrings (the more often the better) is to lie on the floor with the legs up the wall.

A flat back and rounded shoulders give long and weak overstretched muscles at the back, and short, tight muscles at the front of the body. This can cause a compression of the rib cage which affects breathing capacity. The back of the neck is also compressed which can be the cause of headaches and migraines and of course neck pain.

Sway Back Posture

Here, there is too much of a lumbar curve. The behind is sticking out, the chest is puffed out and the tummy is protruding. This can cause serious back problems because the lower back is weakened as the pelvis is tilted forward. The psoas (hip flexors) and the front of the thighs (the quadriceps) are very tight, pulling everything “forwards”, together with the tight lower back muscles and weak abdominals. Sciatic pain is also common here.

There are many exercises that can be done to help a sway back, but vital for all postural correction is of course the building of a strong core and learning proper body alignment.

I had some of the signs of a sway back problem, which is lower back pain, walking on the inside of my feet and sciatic pain.

Yogilates gives you the core strength which helps to correct body alignment, and give good muscle tone and flexibility.

Learning To Breathe

Breath and Breathing is the first thing that we go through with our new students and all our classes begin with a breathing session. It is amazing how so many who come to us have no idea how to breathe in a healthy and efficient way. Many are shallow upper chest breathers, some hyperventilate and a few are even reverse breathers. With hyperventilation we are talking about breathing too quickly (over breathing) and reverse breathing means to move the belly in on an inhalation, and out on an exhalation, when it should be the other way round. Here below is the Home Practice Sheet that we hand out to our students and ask them to practice with and we also do the below mentioned strap exercise at the beginning of every class:

Introduction

Most of us do not use our lungs efficiently and breathe fully — we are ‘partial’ breathers. Disordered breathing patterns are common and reflect tension in the body.

Unless we unlearn these patterns they will continue for a lifetime. Poor breathing means that we are restricting the intake of life-giving oxygen and not efficiently eliminating toxins from the lungs.

The following exercise, if done regularly over a period of time, will have a dramatic effect on your breathing capacity. It is designed to target all parts of the lungs, activating areas that currently do not work efficiently —or at all— and thereby increasing the volume of air that you can breathe in and out. This is achieved through regularly exercising the ‘breathing muscles’ —the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles that lie within the ribcage.

The Breathing Exercise

Kneel or sit cross legged on the floor or sit in a chair. Breathe through the nose with the mouth gently closed. Become aware of your breath at your nostrils. Now shift that awareness to your throat and begin to draw or ‘channel’ the breath down the throat making a soft sound. Be mindful of keeping your back straight and your chest open throughout.

Firstly we are going to visualize three sections to the lungs (please see picture)

Superior lobes in the region of the upper chest, normally quite restricted due to tightness in the shoulders and upper back. Smallest volume.

Mid lobes in the chest/middle back region

Inferior lobes below the chest and behind the floating ribs. Largest volume.

Wrap a strap around the lower ribcage, just below the chest, and hold the ends so that the strap is held lightly but firmly against the ribcage. Feel the strap against the side and back ribs as well as the front. Now breathe into the strap and feel the ribcage expand. As you exhale pull gently on the ends of the strap to assist the release of the outgoing breath. Continue this for at least a minute.

At first your breathing may be quite rough. Learn to draw the breath down through the throat until you can manage a smooth inhalation. Channelling the breath in this way also helps the expansion of the lungs. In yoga this is called ujayi breathing.

Now wrap the strap around the chest and repeat the exercise. Focus on moving the breath into the side and back ribs and become very aware of the ribcage moving against the strap.

Release the strap and vigorously tap the area above the chest and at the top of the back with your fingers. Place the hands on the upper chest and draw the breath up towards your hands. If it helps, visualize filling up balloons below your hands as you breathe in and deflate the balloons as you breathe out. Check any impulse to lift your shoulders as you breathe in.

Now tuck your fists into your armpits and breathe against them.

Finally touch the top of your back with your fingers and visualize drawing the breath up towards your fingers as you breathe in. Allow the upper back to sink down as you breathe out. Try to keep your shoulders relaxed throughout.

I hope you have found this article helpful and that it has given some food for thought. And if you don’t practice yoga or Pilates already, you might consider joining a class. If you can’t find anyone near you who teaches the combination of yoga and Pilates like we do, maybe you can start by joining a Pilates class and see how you find that.

Best of luck!