- Speaker #0
Usually, when we talk about a medical diagnosis or the human body, there is this really visceral expectation of absolute precision. It's almost reassuring, you know, a bit like mechanical engineering. That's it,
- Speaker #1
we're looking for the square side, the black and white side.
- Speaker #0
Exactly. We make a fall, we have a pain in the arm, and hop, the x-ray shows this huge black plate with a very clear white line. And there, the doctor points his pen on it, saying that the fracture is here.
- Speaker #1
Voilà, c'est cassé ou c'est pas cassé. Le problème est isolé.
- Speaker #0
And the solution seems just as linear, but hey.
- Speaker #1
But the reality is very different. Medical imaging has finally conditioned us to look for this binary causality. Our brain loves to put a physical problem in a well-delimited box.
- Speaker #0
Except that it doesn't work like that when it moves.
- Speaker #1
Ah, no. This static vision collapses completely as soon as we start observing a human body in motion. And it's even more true for a body that goes through major hormonal and structural disruptions, such as pregnancy.
- Speaker #0
And that's where the famous X-ray machine becomes completely useless. Because when you enter the field of body transformation, you observe a physical landscape that is incredibly troubled.
- Speaker #1
It is in perpetual redefinition,
- Speaker #0
yes. That's what pushes us today to dive into this analysis in depth. We're going to explore the notes of a professional who literally forms the other instructors to these issues. We're based on a fascinating article by Caroline Berger of Fémini.
- Speaker #1
Absolutely. She is the founder of the studio Biopilates Paris and also a trainer for methods. Very demanding, like Stott Pilates and gyrotonic.
- Speaker #0
And our mission today is to understand why the prenatal Pilates does not consist absolutely not to take a normal exercise and to make it vaguely softer. It's much deeper than that.
- Speaker #1
It's an accompaniment of a body that transforms. Yes, it's not the machines that guarantee security, but the instructor's brain.
- Speaker #0
Well, let's sort it out a little bit, because there is a radical idea in this text that made me jump. The author affirms that the... The body of an pregnant woman is not a weakened body, but a body in full reorganization. I admit that I have a little trouble with that.
- Speaker #1
Ah good ?
- Speaker #0
What blocks you ? When we carry another human being, when we are exhausted, when the center of gravity shifts completely, we are not, by definition, in a state of fragility.
- Speaker #1
I understand exactly why we think that. This feeling of exhaustion is very real. But to qualify it as biomechanical weakness is a mistake of interpretation.
- Speaker #0
That is to say ?
- Speaker #1
You have to realize that the volume of a pregnant woman increases by about 50%. Her low metabolism accelerates, her bone structure adapts in real time. It's the equivalent of an uninterrupted physiological marathon.
- Speaker #0
An uninterrupted marathon ? Ah yeah, the image is strong.
- Speaker #1
And that's why the French health recommendations strongly encourage the maintenance of the movement during pregnancy. Obviously, if there are no medical complications. The paradigm changes, in fact.
- Speaker #0
So we're not trying to repair anything.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. The instructor is not there... to repair a weakness, nor to clean up a sick person. It accompanies an architectural redefinition. The body does not lose its strength, it simply moves its priorities.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so, logically, if I have to adapt a movement for this body whose architecture changes, my first intuition would be to remove all the complexity.
- Speaker #1
You mean, remove the endostepic machines.
- Speaker #0
Voilà. I remove the machines, I remove the pulleys, and I put the person on a simple carpet on the ground. The famous work on the mat en pilates. It seems to me to be the safest environment. We can't fall lower than the ground, can we?
- Speaker #1
So that's a huge illusion. Gravity is not a gift. It's an implacable force,
- Speaker #0
you know. Ah yeah? Even lying on a carpet?
- Speaker #1
No external assistance. The absence of machines forces the nervous system to generate its own proprioception, its own return of information.
- Speaker #0
So it's more difficult neurologically, in fact?
- Speaker #1
Completely. In prenatal care, work on the ground is not a regression towards ease. It's a laboratory to explore super-thin mechanisms, like breathing and the famous pelvic floor. Ah, the pelvic floor.
- Speaker #0
Actually, I would tend to believe that, in the face of the baby's growing weight, the main instruction would be to contract it to the fullest, to tighten it to the maximum to keep everything in place. As if we were locking the doors of a safe.
- Speaker #1
It's the reflex of many people, but locking this safe all the time is one of the worst services to this musculature.
- Speaker #0
Really?
- Speaker #1
Why? Le plancher pelvien ressemble à un hamac composé de muscles et de fascias. Pour qu'un hamac soutienne efficacement un poids qui bouge, il doit conserver son élasticité.
- Speaker #0
Donc, si on serre tout le temps ?
- Speaker #1
Si on demande à la personne de serrer en continu pendant 45 minutes, on restreint l'apport sanguin vers ces tissus. On ne construit pas de la force là, on génère de la rigidité.
- Speaker #0
Ah, et je suppose qu'un muscle rigide, c'est un muscle fragile ?
- Speaker #1
C'est un muscle qui devient... incapable of reacting to a sudden overpressure, like a cough or a stuttering. The real work on Tadpi consists of associating the voluntary contraction and, above all, the complete relaxation.
- Speaker #0
So, maintaining a constant tension is a bit like rolling with the brake with a tight hand. It ends up burning the pads.
- Speaker #1
It's an excellent metaphor.
- Speaker #0
But beyond these contractions... invisible, there is the question of positions on this famous carpet. The article cites a very specific rule of the NHS, you know, the British public health system.
- Speaker #1
Yes, the famous rule of 16 weeks.
- Speaker #0
Voilà, it strongly advises you to stay long lying flat after 16 weeks of pregnancy. What happens mechanically at this time for such a banal position to become dangerous?
- Speaker #1
It's purely mechanical, linked to the internal plumbing of the body. From 16 weeks, the uterus has taken on a significant size and weight. When the woman lies on her back, gravity plucks this mass directly against the lower vein. Okay,
- Speaker #0
and what exactly is this vein for?
- Speaker #1
It's located a little to the right of the colon. And its role is to bring the unoxygenated blood from the lower half of the body to the heart. If it is crushed, the heart rate drops suddenly.
- Speaker #0
Ah yes, it's not trivial at all.
- Speaker #1
Not at all. It causes a syndrome of compression cave. It means dizziness, nausea, discomfort and especially a decrease in oxygenation for the fetus. The instructor must therefore abandon the plate and draw everything back around lateral or four-legged positions.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so if the ground poses this kind of challenge of weightlessness and compression, I imagine that the machines take all their meaning. Especially the reformer, this kind of sliding bed with springs.
- Speaker #1
Exactly, the reformer is very used.
- Speaker #0
But there, my Cartesian brain says... The person is pregnant, the movement must be soft, so I detach a maximum of springs to remove resistance. Less springs equal easier. It's mathematics.
- Speaker #1
Well, the mathematics of springs is much more subtle than that. On a reformer, the tension acts in two ways. It offers resistance to overcome, sure, but it also provides support.
- Speaker #0
Support for the mobile chariot.
- Speaker #1
Yes, when we remove the springs, we ease the load. It's true, but we also remove the brakes. The chariot becomes free, superfluous. The nervous system must then compensate for this instability by frantically recruiting the deep muscles.
- Speaker #0
I see. It's a bit like driving on the verglas. Removing the springs is like removing the adhesion of the tires.
- Speaker #1
That's exactly it.
- Speaker #0
The accelerator pedal is perhaps lighter, but the level of vigilance to maintain the trajectory without going into the background explodes completely. But,
- Speaker #1
suddenly... How does an instructor decide if the spring must resist the gesture or stabilize it? What is fascinating here is that the role of the instructor is not to search for the spectacular movement. The number one danger to a prenatal reformer is not the maximal effort.
- Speaker #0
What is it then?
- Speaker #1
It's the transition. How does it climb on this unstable device? How does it get out of it? The instructor must calculate if the spring will assist it in its braking or let it collapse.
- Speaker #0
What if this mobile cart was a slippery terrain? The logic would be to go towards fixed devices. I'm thinking of the Tower. It's a fixed metal frame with springs, with reassuring supports. I've always heard that it decompressed the column.
- Speaker #1
The famous decompression of the Tower. It's a myth of biomechanics, unfortunately.
- Speaker #0
Really? It's not the perfect place to relieve the back?
- Speaker #1
No, because the attraction of a spring does not make the difference between an articulation that needs space and a fabric already fragilized. If the alignment is not perfect, the spring pulls it asymmetrically on the ligaments.
- Speaker #0
And what does it do concretely?
- Speaker #1
The body perceives it as a threat and crisps. It can induce muscle spasms of defense.
- Speaker #0
Ok, so caution with the tower. And for the bottom of the body? There is the chair. This little chair with a pedal springs. In prenatal, we can work standing, in balance on one leg to stabilize the pelvis, right?
- Speaker #1
In theory, classic, yes, it's excellent. But during pregnancy, the system releases a hormone called the arm. relaxin.
- Speaker #0
La relaxin, ça porte bien son nom.
- Speaker #1
Oui, sa mission c'est de relâcher les ligaments du bassin pour l'accouchement, sauf qu'elle circule dans tout le corps, rendant toutes les articulations hypermobiles et vulnérables.
- Speaker #0
Donc se tenir sur une jambe et pousser une pédale avec l'autre ?
- Speaker #1
Ça crée une force de cisaillement massif à travers des articulations sacroiliac qui sont déjà relâchées chimiquement. Ça peut déclencher des douleurs aiguës au bassin ou au pubis. On We absolutely avoid making it a challenge of balance.
- Speaker #0
C'est là que ça devient vraiment intéressant, parce qu'il y a un conflit direct avec l'ego.
- Speaker #1
Oh oui, l'ego dans un studio de pilates, c'est un vrai sujet.
- Speaker #0
Bah oui, le prof veut montrer sa technique, la pratiquante veut faire ce qu'elle faisait il y a six mois. Si un exo déclenche une douleur, il faut l'abandonner. Mais est-ce que renoncer à un exercice difficile n'est pas souvent perçu à tort comme un manque de compétence du prof ?
- Speaker #1
Totalement, mais la vraie compétence professionnelle, c'est justement de savoir renoncer à une proposition inadaptée. L'ego est le plus grand danger.
- Speaker #0
It's easy to say we can cancel everything, right?
- Speaker #1
Yes, but accompanying verticality is not bending the body to an anatomy manual. It's proposing a task that can be done without triggering a defense mechanism. Knowing how to say we're moving on to something else is a mature clinical judgment.
- Speaker #0
Super clear. So, after the mechanics, let's dive into the real anatomy. The volume of the body changes, especially the thoracic cage.
- Speaker #1
It's a fascinating area during pregnancy.
- Speaker #0
Spontaneously, I tell myself that the uterus pushes all the way up, so the thoracic cage is crushed. So, we should use the barrels, these curved surfaces, to cramp the person in the back and force the opening of the thorax,
- Speaker #1
right? Especially not. This visualization of a crushed thoracic cage is misleading. The reality is in three dimensions. The diaphragm goes up, yes, but to compensate, the thoracic cage expands laterally.
- Speaker #0
Wait, the ribs are apart on the sides?
- Speaker #1
Exactly. The transverse diameter increases, it is already open.
- Speaker #0
It's like inflating a balloon in a rigid tube. If it can't go down, it pushes on the sides. So if we put it on a barrel to open it back hard...
- Speaker #1
We risk creating lesions on the tissues of the abdominal wall, which are already stretched to the extreme. You must not force this opening mechanically.
- Speaker #0
And for the flexion, we often hear that leaning forward is formally forbidden.
- Speaker #1
It's an unfounded psychosis. The NHS authorises a soft flexion, for example with four legs. It mobilises the back without crushing the belly and it's great to relieve the lumbars.
- Speaker #0
It's like forcing a plant that has changed direction towards the light to come back in a straight tutor. The support must accompany the body, not impose a form on it.
- Speaker #1
It's a beautiful image. and that's exactly the pedagogical principle.
- Speaker #0
Which brings me to the gyrotonic mentioned in the text, hyperfluid circular movements. We say, water doesn't hurt, so fluidity is inevitably harmless.
- Speaker #1
Beware of the myth of fluidity. A fluid movement is not automatically safer. Evolving like in molasses requires constant muscle control.
- Speaker #0
So it's very demanding.
- Speaker #1
Extremely. Knowing how to teach a method doesn't mean knowing its prenatal applications. The indicator is not fluid aesthetics, it's breathing. It's the only reliable observation mark against fatigue.
- Speaker #0
So what does all this mean, in the end? The instructor must be a translator of the body's signals, how he doses the effort, there is no heart monitor.
- Speaker #1
It's much simpler. The NHS uses the talk test, the conversation test.
- Speaker #0
You just have to chat during the effort.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. During pregnancy, the priority is oxygen for the fetus. si la pratiquante ne peut pas not hold a conversation without looking for his breath, his muscles consume too much oxygen to the detriment of the placenta. Exhaustion is never the goal.
- Speaker #0
And if we cross the medical red line, bleeding, vertigo or a painful and inflated mollusk, does the instructor adjust the spring to relieve?
- Speaker #1
Especially not. If we link this to the global vision, the instructor is not a doctor. These signs, like the inflated mollusk that evokes a thrombosis, impose the immediate total immédiat, on ne modifie rien. on renvoie vers les urgences.
- Speaker #0
Donc, la confiance, c'est d'accepter de dire « je ne sais pas, allez voir un médecin ».
- Speaker #1
Exactement. L'entretien préalable et l'adaptation en temps réel sont vitaux. Une séance n'est pas une liste d'exercices décidées à l'avance.
- Speaker #0
En fait, le matériel, le maths, le reformer, tout ça, c'est juste un vocabulaire.
- Speaker #1
Oui, la formation permet de choisir les beaux mots, de faire des phrases, et surtout de savoir quand mettre le point final.
- Speaker #0
C'est une philosophie brillante. Et pour ceux qui nous écoutent et qui ne vont même pas... Pilates, why be interested in it? Because it teaches us to see any physical activity not as an blind performance, but as a dialogue with a body that evolves.
- Speaker #1
Absolutely, it's universal.
- Speaker #0
And it leaves a slightly provocative thought for the end. If this body in pregnancy is not weakened, but in reorganization, to what extent could we apply this to aging or recovery after a injury?
- Speaker #1
It's an excellent question to ask.
- Speaker #0
And if the real progress was not to force the body into an ideal mold of our youth, but to have the intelligence to change the mold to adapt it to who we are today. We let you meditate on that.
