CONTRIBUTED BY BPS TENSEGRITY
ow can ‘Connect Therapy’ help you
improve your Pilates and Yoga technique?
It is common knowledge among the yoga
community that our body and mind are connected: Our thoughts influence our body,
and our body influences our thoughts. In
Western society, we have been conditioned
to think that each aspect of our being should
be treated by a specialised professional: our
mind requires a psychologist, our gut requires a gastroenterologist, our headaches
require a headache specialist. And, any pain
we feel can be remedied by the quick and
effortless swallow of a pain killer or antiinflammatory pill. We don’t take into account, that the site of pain or dysfunction
may not be the cause of the problem; or
that we may actually be in control of our
own body and being.
It is interesting to note that Western medicine is the only type of medicine that compartmentalises health. Eastern approaches
such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
and Ayurvedic medicine, treat the body as a
whole, with the belief that you cannot affect
one part of the being, without affecting all
parts. This is also the foundation of Connect
Therapy; the revolutionising approach to
physiotherapy that the team at BPS
Tensegrity use.
Connect Therapy integrates wonderfully into
the practice of Pilates and Yoga, aligning
your whole body and using mindfulness and
awareness to empower the individual to take
control of their own body and wellbeing. It
teaches us how we can use the power of our
mind to influence our body, enabling us to
ensure that our breath is most effectively
utilised by the organs, blood vessels and
nerves; to allow the joints to move smoothly
and freely; and the muscles to appropriately
lengthen and strengthen efficiently, with
minimal energy expenditure.
To put it simply: more effective results from
your practice, with less effort.
For example, the yogi who wants to improve
the rotation of his hip in his warrior II pose:
in isolated testing, yes, his hip mobility is
reduced, his hamstrings are tight and his hip
flexors grip when he tries to lower into the
pose. On assessment his driver, or source of
dysfunction comes from mal-alignment of his
foot, which is far too rigid and unable to provide his body with a stable base, and hence
develops gripping strategies through his hip
flexors, encouraging his core to disengage,
creating hamstring tightness to compensate.
So the poor guy can work on his hip mobility
and hamstring flexibility all day long, sitting
in lotus pose at his desk, watching TV in
happy baby pose or a forward fold… but if
the biomechanics of his foot is not addressed, he will never progress or have lasting improvement from his hours of stretching.
Another example, the lady who diligently
attends her gym pilates class three times a
week to strengthen her ‘core’ to improve her
squat. She can perform hundreds, bridges
and crunches, but suffers back pain every
time she loads herself with a barbell in the
squat rack. Her problem is not her core
strength. It may be coming from her thorax,
which is compressed every time she squats
with the bar on her back, causing shifts and
torsions through her spine and pelvis, increasing the tension in her sacro-iliac ligaments resulting in pain. Or from her lack of
shoulder external rotation to hold the bar on
her back, so she compensates by hinging
and extending at a point in her back, causing compression, possible disc bulges, and
pain. A Connect Therapy assessment will determine the driver of this lady’s movement
dysfunction, effectively treat and relieve her
pain, as well as improving her ability to use
her core, allowing her to benefit and progress much more through her pilates practice.
Connect therapy is a ‘whole body’ approach
to physiotherapy that provides patients with
relief and results where other approaches
fall short. Patients feel heard, understood
and ‘felt’ and when their whole body has
been appropriately treated, they are able to
make changes to their minds and bodies
that they never expected. It is a model of
physiotherapy that not only relieves pain
and rehabilitates injury, but also improves
movement efficiency and performance by realigning bodies, teaching self-awareness,
self-efficacy, interconnectedness, and the
ability to observe the ‘self’ as a whole.
If you would like to book an initial
consultation and assessment with one of
our physiotherapist, contact us at
(02) 8544 1757, our studios are located in
Caringbah a