Deep core muscles
Transversus abdominis, the multifidus muscles along the spine, the pelvic floor, the diaphragm: your deep muscles form a natural corset around your spine and pelvis. You can't see them and rarely feel them, yet they keep every movement you make stable.
Why we tend to forget them?
Surface muscles such as the rectus abdominis or the glutes are easier to feel and to engage. As soon as an exercise gets challenging, they tend to take over, at the expense of the deeper muscles.
Pilates puts these muscles at the heart of the practice, together with breathing and centring. On the Reformer, the moving carriage creates controlled instability: to hold your position, your body has to stabilise from within.
In the studio: the plank on the carriage
With your hands on the footbar and your feet against the shoulder blocks, you hold a plank while the carriage glides beneath you. To keep your body aligned, your deep muscles have to work the whole time.
It's also the exercise where compensations show up fastest: hips that sag, shoulders creeping up towards your ears, a held breath, a belly that pushes outwards instead of drawing in.
Alexandra's eye
These mistakes are often impossible to feel from the inside: you think you're doing it right, when your surface muscles have actually taken over. Drawing on her training in anatomy and movement, Alexandra spots these small shifts and guides you with a word, a gesture or a spring adjustment.
Above all, she teaches you to feel these muscles for yourself: your breathing, engaging your centre, the position of your pelvis. Once you've found these sensations, they stay with you well beyond the studio, in your everyday movements.
Curious to learn more or give it a try? Book your session at the Alina Pilates Reformer studio in Carouge.
