I haven’t written about Pilates in a while, so I thought I’d share an unusual training situation I found myself in the other day.
A client – with whom I’d only worked once before – came in for a private session with a broken arm. That’s right – a broken arm. She’d been in a bike accident two weeks earlier, was feeling stiff and unhealthy, and just wanted to get moving again. Add to that the fact that she hadn’t done Pilates in a while, and I had a major challenge on my hands.
“Okay,” I told her. “Let’s get started.” In my head, I was thinking “Oh my god, how am I going to fill 55 minutes AND give her a satisfying workout?!??”
A little more detail about her injury:
She had a compound fracture in her left arm, a metal plate holding it together, and a custom caste set at a 90 degree angle (ie, elbow bent with her forearm turned in towards her body). In addition to her overall body stiffness, she wanted to work on opening up her collarbone area, which was feeling particularly tight (obviously). I had two things in mind as I quickly designed a workout in my head: not hurting her and giving her a balanced workout without favoring her uninjured side.
Here’s what we did:
Reformer
- Footwork: The client was able to rest her broken arm on top of her stomach with the other arm extending on the carriage. We focused on normal Footwork stuff…stretching long through the spine, keeping a neutral pelvis, and engaging the abdominals to move the carriage back and forth.
- Hundred: We obviously skipped the straps and the arm pumping here, but the client was able to curl up her head, neck, and shoulders comfortably. This time, she rested both hands on her belly to stay aligned, stretched her legs out to a high diagonal, and just focused on the breathing and abdominal engagement.
- Short Box: I was a little stressed out about having the client several feet off the ground, sitting on top of the short box – last thing I needed was for her to fall on her arm! She seemed fine though; so we moved through round back, straight back, side-to-side, and twist reach. For all but round back, she left her arms above her head with elbows bent wide to the side. Totally worked!
- Stomach Massage: Okay, this one was interesting and maybe wasn’t the best part of the workout, but we were at least able to work on lifting from the pelvic floor and controlling the movement of the carriage with abdominals. We just did round back (with hands hovering just in front of the carriage) and straight back (with arms by her side). We also seated her a bit further back from the edge of the carriage than usual.
- Running: Same as Footwork in terms of body position and focus.
Mat
- Marching
- Hundred
- Roll up
- Single Leg Circles
- Ab Series of 5
Ending
- Foam roller: I was apprehensive about putting the client on an unstable surface, but doing a stretch on the foam roller was the only thing I could think of in that moment to open up her chest. So I stood very close by, ready to reach in and grab her at the first sign of wobbling.
The client seemed happy with her workout – I think she was just thrilled to be exercising at all! I was relatively happy with it, although I wish I could have figured out how to get some extension exercises in there.
Thoughts? What would you have done?
