{"id":3140,"date":"2024-04-15T08:32:37","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T06:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2026-03-09T06:53:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T05:53:07","slug":"pilates-cervical-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/pilates-dolor-cervical\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilates for neck pain relief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We spend many hours sitting or standing in a certain position and performing repetitive or forceful movements. It requires inadequate postures and overexertion that lead to muscular fatigue as the body is not sufficiently prepared to cope with them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This, on many occasions, will cause one of the most common discomforts today, such as neck pain or \u201ccervical pain\u201d, which is also associated with stress overload and the natural wear and tear caused by age.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/\">Pilates Method<\/a> will work on our posture and will prepare our neck for daily demands, gaining stability, strength, resistance and mobility, which will give us more confidence when it comes to involving it in our activities without feeling overloaded or in pain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0By strengthening the musculature of the centre of our body, the \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/blog\/pilates-abdomen\/\">Powerhouse<\/a>\u201dor \u201cenergy centre\u201d,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We will adopt a correct posture for the whole spine in any activity or task, essential for our health, correctly aligning the neck and shoulders, both in movement and static, thus avoiding contractures due to overload, relieving pain and preventing other injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Benefits of Pilates for Cervical Health<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Pilates method provides us with a great deal of work on body awareness and proprioception necessary to achieve greater motor control of the position and movement of the neck.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0It will work on the strength of the internal and stabilising muscles, improving the coordination of muscular activity, thus achieving greater mobility, consistency and fluidity in cervical function, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by relieving tension in areas that don't need it and relieving your pain.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The shortened muscles will be lengthened and the weak muscles will be strengthened, achieving a correct balance between the muscle chains and favouring a correct posture.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The work of our energy centre makes us work in an analytical way on our spine, exercising its mobility and flexibility, strengthening the muscles that support it and thus releasing pressure in the cervical area and the rest of the spine, maintaining harmony between the vertebrae.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With its work on elongation, alignment, flexibility and muscle tone, the vertebrae, intervertebral discs, ligaments and spaces through which nerve roots pass will be free of any pressure and irritation that can cause pain and injury.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Breathing work makes us exercise the intercostal muscles, which, as well as helping us to increase our lung capacity, makes the dorsal spine more flexible, giving it greater mobility and avoiding rigid and weak areas and taking pressure off the cervical area.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an ideal training to prevent future problems caused by overexertion, bad posture, physical demands, lack of training or sedentary life.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Specific Pilates Exercises for Neck Pain<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the Pilates method we work in a global and integral way. The exercises will be executed taking into account the alignment of all body structures and generating effective and efficient movement patterns to improve functionality as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All the exercises are based on the strength of the \u201c.\u201c<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">energy centre\u201d or \u201cPowerhouse<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201dThe motor is generated in order to go to the more external and distal areas, favouring joint stability and rebalancing of the muscle chains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bearing in mind the above, only with a good positioning of the head with respect to the cervical and the rest of the spine, and a correct positioning of the shoulders, while we perform exercises using the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Powerhouse<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Whether lying on your back, sitting, kneeling or standing, we will ensure that the neck receives an efficient workout to reduce pain.  With this, we intend that all the strength is carried out and comes out of the centre of the body, removing tension from the cervical and shoulder area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Based on this, the method also includes exercises in which the neck takes on a more prominent role in which specific qualities are worked on in the neck, such as stability, strength, mobility, or motor and postural coordination:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Craniocervical mobility exercises to lengthen the posterior muscles and tone the anterior internal and flexor muscles.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stabilising the rest of the body with the strength of the centre, we will perform cervical movements of flexion, inclination, rotations, or combinations between them, always maintaining correct alignment, harmony and fluidity in their movement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will also incorporate exercises to strengthen the muscles of the rib cage and the back, arms and shoulders, using resistance with the springs provided by the apparatus of the method while keeping the neck well aligned.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will also use the resistance of the springs and straps to strengthen the muscles between the shoulder blades while giving elasticity to the chest and shoulder area.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spinal mobility exercises in all its movement patterns, focusing on the dorsal area to make it more flexible and take tension off the neck.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Tips for Practising Pilates Safely with Neck Pain<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At \u00c9lite Pilates we help the body to develop uniformly, seeking the correct postural pattern by working on all the necessary qualities. We consider that these characteristics are what the body needs to be healthy and to perform any action of the day to day in a healthy way, without pain or injury.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the fundamental concepts in the Pilates method is the use of the centre line, from head to toe, which divides the body into two symmetrical and aligned halves.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The head should be held erect over the shoulders while maintaining the centre line.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Based on this alignment we will control the movement of the neck and spine and rebalance and strengthen its musculature.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The head shall be well positioned in relation to the cervical vertebrae.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will make our gaze help us to maintain the correct position of our neck with the rest of the spine and limbs, without incorrectly conditioning our body posture and movement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The shoulders shall be well aligned with each other and at hip level, forming a box which should be symmetrical to avoid postural imbalance and thus muscular overload.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We must be careful not to put the weight of our body on the neck or shoulders, or use springs or weights on the arms without first mastering the stability work of our shoulder girdle with the correct position of the spine and neck.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Son muchas horas las que pasamos sentados, o de pie, en una determinada posici\u00f3n y realizando movimientos repetitivos o de fuerza. Nos exige posturas inadecuadas y sobreesfuerzos que nos llevan a una fatiga muscular al no estar el cuerpo suficientemente preparado para asumirlas. Esto, en muchas ocasiones, provocar\u00e1 una de las molestias m\u00e1s comunes, hoy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pilates"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitepilates.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}