Your head and neck might have a much bigger impact on your workout than you realize.
We recently touched on the importance of breathing in pilates. Now, let’s look at the next essential of pilates, cervical alignment.
Your cervical spine, also known as your neck, is an integral part of your body, your posture, and thus your workout. It might not be the area you come into the studio planning to focus on, but nonetheless, your neck will have a major impact on the rest of your workout. You’ve likely come to realize this by accident before if you’ve ever turned your head the wrong way during a stretch and felt a shooting pain or stuck your head out a little too much during an exercise and realized you’d activated a whole different set of muscles.
You might think you know how your neck, head, and shoulders should all connect, but when was the last time you really looked at how they sit in comparison to one another? It’s not unlikely they’re a little out of balance. After all, in the tech-heavy world we’re living in lots of us spend hours each day with our neck craned forwards to a screen. This type of lifestyle sometimes leads to pain and muscular fatigue. Common problems include rounded shoulders, a forward head, and slouching.
But what do we even want our necks to look like? As explained by Merrithew, “the cervical spine should hold its natural curve with the skull balancing directly above the shoulders while sitting in neutral”. Likewise, you want to your neck with its natural curve above the shoulders when laying down. More specifically, as Michael King explains, “where the ears are aligned with the shoulders, the chin is slightly tucked, and the gaze is straight ahead”.
There’s a myriad of reasons why you might want to pay attention to your neck’s positioning, but one of them is because of how quickly changing your neck’s positioning can affect the rest of your workout. If your neck isn’t in alignment as you workout, you may find yourself exercising the wrong muscles.
Luckily, pilates can give us tools to fix this posture. Pads or pillows can be used under the head to “prevent overextension and unnecessary tension”. Over time, you can adjust to use lesser pads or pillows as your posture realigns itself. Pilates can also help you work on the rest of your posture, which is essential because your upper back can often affect your head and neck’s posture as well.
Perhaps surprisingly, working out can also sometimes be the solution for neck pain. Have you ever felt like you were so sore you couldn’t possibly move again, and then gone to a workout class and realized you felt better after? This is somewhat the same concept. As explained by Complete Pilates, “whilst exercises may be the last thing you want to do whilst in pain, Pilates exercises for neck pain are designed to help alleviate and manage pain.” In other words, you might be able to use pilates and its focus on properly aligning the neck to your benefit, though of course there’s varied causes and solutions to neck pain and you should always check with your doctor and instructor before seeking this solution and about how to best do so.
To work on your cervical alignment, find a pilates class near you. We’ll look forwards to seeing you in the studio soon.