The Back4Good programme

All of orthoPilates classes will be beneficial to your back. Some classes are specifically targeted for this, including the Healthy Backs classes and the B4G programme.
Please click here to download a full pdf leaflet covering the Healthy Backs classes.

Pilates for Back Pain Retreat - 18 - 25 May, 2018

Take a break from your aching back, while enjoying the pleasures of a Greek Island holiday. Join us for an orthoPilates Back Pain retreat.

This exceptional retreat, unlike any other, offers you personalised support including an in-depth assessment of your structural and postural issues with our experienced osteopath, Jessica, working in partnership with Alex, our Pilates (Back4Good) coach. Together they will devise the ideal therapeutic regime designed to realign your bones and joints, free up and strengthen your aching muscles.
Your daily Pilates exercises will retrain your posture, help you to support your body to become more stable and more flexible while avoiding those aches and pains.

This powerful combination of manual therapy and Pilates will foster a greater awareness and appreciation of your back and help to improve your overall health and wellbeing.

Your week will begin with a comprehensive assessment and treatment from our osteopath. Beginner Pilates students may need a small-group session to cover the essentials during that first day.

Each morning there will be a full 90 minute-Pilates class, followed by a delicious healthy breakfast. For the rest of the daytimes there will be one to one sessions with Alex or Jessica as needed and you will otherwise be free to relax or explore the island - there are two cars available for you to use. Then at sunset there will be a second Pilates ‘relax and unwind’ class.

In the evening you will have the chance to discover a range of local restaurants. The full program is detailed below.

 

Back pain and other aches:
management and prevention

It is now well known that exercise is effective in addressing the aches and pains of daily living: whether these are brought on by lifestyle, ill health, injury at work, play or sports, or simply through age and the ravages of time.

This may be made worse by what we do all day and how we do it. We all have bad habits to contend with.

You can prevent or at least manage your back pain by learning corrected patterns of alignment and developing new body movement strategies.

'Non-specific' Low Back Pain.

Most back pain is caused by tension and stiffness held in the neck and the lower back.

It may be caused by incorrect posture, or 'alignment' which gradually results in aches and pains, as you habitually lean this way or that, or hunch over a computer or even worse a tiny mobile screen. Poor postural habits may have led to injuries and pulled muscles on the sports field or on your daily jog: the very activities we take on to preserve our good bodily health.

Diagnosed Back issues

Sometimes of course, back pain is caused by diagnosed problems or pathologies that include prolapsed ('slipped') disks, spondylosis, stenosis. In some cases pain is not going to be fully preventable - at least in the short term and exercise here will serve to retrain old habits to avoid the painful positions and actions. This is part of pain management.

You will be coached to develop new appropriate movement strategies with strengths that prevent relapse into the old, painful patterns.

Healthy Backs Classes

If you want an effective way to strengthen your back or to prevent and 'manage' your back pain, then our targeted 'Healthy Backs Class' is the perfect option. These classes will give you a gentle, balanced workout with the focus on strengthening the core abdominals that do so much for your posture and for supporting your back.

Class sizes are limited to six , so that you get maximum attention and support, but it is also recommended that you have at least one private coaching session. This will us to have a more educated idea of one another and to be able to focus on your individual situation during subsequent classes, where personal attention is necessarily divided amongst all the group, however small.

 

Back4Good

While elements of Back4Good will suffuse all work with Back Pain clients, orthoPilates also offers the specialist Back4Good® programme. This is a formal programme of (mostly private) classes, which relates to exercise referral and follows NICE guidelines relating to Low Back pain.

Clients may opt for the programme, which will be tailored to their own needs. To do the formal programme a referral from a GP or physiotherapist is needed.

By arrangement we may set up a Back4Good group programme. This is a series of four group classes of five people followed by attendance at a Healthy Backs class or Back4Good follow up class, with a maimum of 10 persons in the class.

Back4Good trainers are members of the BackCare Association and have additional qualification at Level 4 (Advanced Exercise Instructor) with the Register of Exercise Professionals and SkillsActive: quality control for the UK Health and Fitness industry.

orthoPilates coaches have followed further specialist training back and spinal alignment/pain, bone health and other areas.