One to avoid if you have a fragile back (Pilates for Fragile Backs - Andrea Fischgrund Stanton)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	Pilates for Fragile Backs - Andrea Fischgrund Stanton
Date:	03/06/09 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see review

Disadvantages: see review

As some of you know, and some of you don't, I have severe back pain from unstable joints and I'm constantly looking for products to help with this. I have a variety of Pilates books and DVDs and when I saw this book I thought it sounded perfect. Pilates for Fragile Backs is aimed at those who've had back surgery, injury or any back problems as standard pilates can be too hard for those of us with back pain. So I bought a copy from Amazon Marketplace for £7.99. It sells new for £15.49 and I'm really glad I didn't pay full price.

Contained within this book is supposed to be exercises that are modified pilates, this is to make them easy enough for people with back problems to perform. Even those that have had a degree of fusion can do most of the exercises so it sounded perfect.

The book starts by explaining the anatomy of the spine, then goes on to explain how pilates strengthens the core, decompresses the spine, lengthens the muscles of the limbs, improves posture and circulation, lubricates joints, firms abdominals and buttocks and should decrease pain.

There are then some personal stories of back problems by the author and others and then a section explaining the various methods of relaxing muscles such as heat therapy, TENS machines and different types of massage. Afterwards are methods of pain control like steroid injections, botox, tablets, support groups etc. This takes us right up to page 63 before we even get a glimpse of pilates!

So at this point the authors start to explain about the pilates method. The whole contracting the deep stabilisers by lifting up the pelvic floor and pulling the lower abs in and learning to breathe at the same time, one good point here is they advise giving yourself a couple of months to learn to do this which is about right for those of us with back problems. I think the author doesn't actually go into as much detail about the deep stabilisers and how to contract them correctly though. This is a vital point for people with back problems because we lose the ability to use the deep muscles automatically so you have to get the conscious contraction perfect and isolated or the exercises aren't going to be of use.

Then we move onto basic matwork exercises. These exercises are allegedly modified but they're not. I've had pilates lessons and have many books as I said before and these exercises just aren't modified. I even have a book that does have modified exercises in it and this one seems to miss the point. They are actually standard basic pilates exercises that every book contains as the first stage. The way to modify pilates is really mostly about making movements smaller so they can be controlled, for example using a bent leg instead of a straight leg until the leg can straighten without stressing the back and doing small leg circles instead of large ones so you can control the movement. This book doesn't explain that and just gives bog standard first stage exercises.

Another problem is the lack of information about what to look out for. When new to pilates or struggling with controlling the core there are a number of things that can go wrong and negate the exercises but this book only considers pelvic movement, this is of course a problem that should be watched for but it's one of many. That's nowhere near enough information to prevent people going wrong, particularly thse with back problems who will definitely struggle not to go wrong.

The next section covers Reformer exercises. A Reformer is a pilates machine with cables and a sliding seat. I actually have a Reformer so I thought this would be especially useful to me. Not so. The exercises are poorly explained so you don't know how you're supposed to perform them and they leap from simple foot work exercises to advanced large, straight leg circles with resistance with very little in between! This is not only sloppy on the part of the authors but dangerous for people with back injuries.

Next there are a few exercises on a Cadillac machine. This is different to the Reformer and I don't have one so I couldn't use those anyway. They too are advanced though and badly explained.

That's the entire book, poorly explained exercises and not enough explanation of how to contract the muscles you need and should be using to stabilise the spine. In my opinion this is nothing new on the exercise front and to be avoided. A waste of money and not going into detail about how to get the deep stabilisers working correctly is a big mistake for people with back problems. I think this would have been a more useful book if some of the waffle from the early sections had been removed and replaced with detailed instructions for the deep stabiliser contraction and some exercises to work up to using it properly.

Just the one star I'm afraid.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: In my opinion useless