Pilates for Fragile Backs
Chronic pain is like an internal fire alarm that can’t be turned off. It’s deafening to you but unheard by others. It can dominate your life so that over time you may very well lose your livelihood and the pleasure of social and family interactions.
This book was written with the hope that those who suffer from chronic back pain, especially as a result of surgical interventions aimed at treating disk disease and curvatures, will come to understand that they are not alone and that safe and effective exercises exist for them.
The exercises are fun and relaxing and will most probably ease much of your pain and lead the way to a better quality of life.
Both authors underwent multiple surgeries for spinal conditions and found themselves relieved of their original sources of pain, but facing new ones. Standard physical therapies were temporarily comforting, but mostly unhelpful. No one in the medical community seemed to know what additional care to offer besides pain medications whose side effects made life difficult in other ways.
In her quest for respite from her suffering, Ruth Hiatt-Coblentz pursued traditional Pilates instruction, but modified the exercises, rendering them effective and appropriate for her fragile spine. Once she had mastered them she introduced them to clients, one of whom was Andra F. Stanton.
So impressed with, and grateful for the pain relief she experienced using Ruth’s regimen, Andra decided the modified exercises should be put to paper, making them accessible to the widest possible audience. Together, Ruth and Andra conceived this book as a gesture of hope – and a means to achieve a way out of the cycle of chronic pain.