How Pilates helped me Post Hysterectomy

Three weeks post surgery, I’m feeling pretty good. So how specifically is Pilates serving me well.

Awareness

Pilates has gifted me awareness of my body. The importance of the large ‘moving’ muscle groups, and equally smaller ‘stabilising’ muscle groups. This awareness has enabled me to see the extreme sensitivity of my muscles during my recovery period as knowledge. To notice the micro movements in the body, such as the movement in my inner abs when I type. Who would have known?! Three weeks out from surgery I can’t notice this, but one week out I definitely could. Wow, what a gift to experience that extra degree of sensitivity and awareness. Pilates has given me an awesome body.

Isolation

The ability to know my body as a system and as individual parts. Pilates has taught me to use my body as a system. It’s also given me the conscious ability to isolate different muscle groups to work alone within this system to maximum effect. This has helped me to consciously turn on and off muscles during recovery so I can move safely and independently. Very cool. Which moves me nicely on to strength…

Strength

because pilates has taught my muscles to work in isolation as well as part of a system, each muscle is strong in it’s own right. While we typically work the system in Pilates, we ensure that system is working in a way that maximises each muscle’s individual strength and flexibility. Through this we’ve added to the strength, flexibility and support of teh system. This has meant that when I haven’t had fully operational abdominals, I’ve been able to consciously turn off those muscles that need to repair and turn on other muscles to do the work, which they have the ability to do by themselves in a stable and safely supported way.

Balance

All those weird exercises we do that put us off balance have enabled me to completely take this one for granted. And it’s been pricelessly useful. When walking upstairs, especially in the first few days when lifting my leg was like a turtle in slow motion, I could easily stand on one leg for ages. The hospital physio was amazed how stable I was on one leg without holding on to anything – until I told her I do pilates. I can stand on one leg and dry my feet, or put on my trousers. This has been a huuuuuge help.

So often we forget how much pilates is doing for us until we stop doing it. In this case though, I am so thankful for all the benefits of it for pre-op preparation and post-op recovery. So keep it up! We never know when the benefits of our pilates will be a strong foundation for the things that life throws at us.

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