Why Pilates for Menopause?

Pilates can be a perfect exercise for peri, menopausal and post menopausal women. 

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It’s low-impact, but it helps increase flexibility, balance and improve muscle strength and tone. 

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It includes endurance movements good for strength training which is crucial for the mid life woman as the softening of the muscles through hormonal changes not only means less strength but also less control over your movement. 

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Pilates builds the inner zone, your ‘core’, to coordinate with the control at the joints and through-out your body.

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Its also a great type of exercise for women to be doing during this time as levels of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone fall during menopause and levels of the stress hormone cortisol rise. High intensity training exercises for example can elevate cortisol levels which is the opposite of what we should be doing.

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Pilates is good for our bone health as its a great form of exercise for bone loading due to the positions used and the action of muscles. In the 5 years after menopause a woman can lose up to 20% of their bone density.

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Pilates is key for our pelvic floor as the hormonal transition occurs this influences the fluid production and tissue quality of the pelvic floor - the benefit of Pilates is that it is low impact thus producing a lower load into your pelvic floor and pelvic organs. Coordinating your pelvic floor will not only counteract these symptoms through increasing the support to the pelvic organs but also increasing blood supply thus nourishing the tissues.

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Pilates can help with our mental clarity and anxieties too as requires a lot of concentration meaning that we have to focus on one thing at a time effectively clearing your mind of other distractions - we literally can't think of anything else giving our mind a much needed break too.