Physical therapy and Pilates have a lot in common and are a great way to treat joint pain and muscle problems. If you’ve ever broken an ankle or other bone, or sprained a joint in any way, chances are you’ve been referred to a physical therapist. Here you will have had your joint manipulated and massaged and probably given a variety of different exercises to perform in order to strengthen the muscle and loosen the joint and tendons.
On the other hand, if you’ve ever been to Pilates, chances are you’ve experienced a lot of the same things. Here you will be directed to perform various exercises during class as your instructor demonstrates them at the front of the class, many of these will have been testing your muscles and training your core, thighs, glutes and more. it can help give you a great toned and firm physique. At the same time, you have probably been taught how to stretch correctly and exercise, and as a result your balance and flexibility will improve. Like physiotherapy, you will also be encouraged to train with these exercises at home to keep the muscle toned and improve posture and other aspects of the problem.
This all works because hurting the joint in this way actually causes much broader damage than just the bone or tendon and can have repercussions throughout the body. For example, if you sprain your ankle, this can leave you with a splintered bone or damaged tendon and you’ll likely have a lot of swelling and other things to deal with. This can have other effects on your body: first, you will likely start to limp to try to compensate for your swollen ankle, and this will mean that you start to walk with poor posture. This in turn can mean that your muscle has developed more in one leg than the other and is wasting away on the side with the damaged ankle.
At the same time, when you’re limping, you’ll use your good leg in different ways than you normally would: your posture will be wrong, and your weight will come down in a different way. On its own, this can cause a stress fracture in that leg over time, but it can also cause the muscles to develop unusually on that side to accommodate this. So this could mean that you start to find that your quads are stronger than your hamstrings, for example, and this can put uneven pressure on your spine, hurting the rest of your posture and causing back pain.
Your weaker ankle will now also be less easy to balance on and weaker and that means it is much more prone to future injury unless it is strengthened and it is not uncommon to find that you end up damaging this area over and over again.
Therefore, any exercise that addresses the issues should focus on strengthening the muscles, improving balance, aiding flexibility, and generally improving all aspects of the ankle.