Physiotherapy and pilates have a lot in common and are both a great way to deal with joint pains and muscular problems. If you have ever broken an ankle or another bone, or twisted a joint in any way, then you will likely have been sent to a physiotherapist. Here you will have had the joint manipulated and massaged and will likely have been given a range of different exercises to perform in order to strengthen the muscle and to loosen the joint and tendons.
If you’ve ever been to pilates on the other hand then you will likely have experienced many of the same things. Here you will have been instructed to perform various exercises during the class while your instructor demonstrates them at the front of the class, many of these will have been taxing on your muscles and will have trained your core, your thighs, your buttocks and more which can help to give you a great toned and firm physique. At the same time you will likely have been shown how to stretch correctly and limber up and your balance and flexibility will be improved as a result. Just like physiotherapy, you will also be encouraged to train using these exercises at home to keep the muscle toned and to improve posture and other aspects of the problem.
This all works because hurting your joint in this way actually causes far wider damage than just damage to the bone or tendon and can have repercussions all throughout the body. For instance if you twist your ankle then this can leave you with a chipped bone or damaged tendon and you will likely find that you have a lot of swelling and other things to contend with. This then can have other effects on your body – first you are likely to find that you start limping in order to try and make up for the swollen ankle and this will mean that you begin walking with a poor posture. This can then in turn mean that you muscle developed more on one leg than on the other and that it wastes on the side with the damaged ankle.
At the same time when you are limping you will be using the good leg in different ways to how you would normally – your posture will be wrong and the weight will be coming down in a different way. On its own this can cause a stress fracture on that leg over time, but it can also cause the muscles to develop unusually on that side to adapt to this. This then might mean that you start to find your quads are stronger than your hamstrings for instance, and this can put uneven pressure on your spine damaging the rest of your posture and causing back ache.
Your weaker ankle is also going to now be less easy to balance on as well as weaker and that means it’s much more prone to future injury unless it is restrengthened and it’s not uncommon to find that you end up damaging this area time and again.
Thus any exercises addressing the problems need to focus on strengthening muscle, improving balance, aiding flexibility and generally improving every aspect of the ankle.
