Exercise your Spine

Our spine has a lot of muscle, ligaments, and nerves that connect to the bone and operate as a connection for different parts of our body. Keeping our spine healthy and flexible is key for mobility, movement and maintaining our quality of life. Many of us sit for long periods or spend parts of our day looking down at our phones. To maintain and increase mobility, balance, and posture take a break and exercise your spine.

Cecilia Pulido is a 2nd generation Pilates Master and educator. She specializes in scoliosis and spinal asymmetry and works with people with Parkinson’s disease.

On a recent Ranch visit, she showed me a few simple exercises to help improve spinal mobility, preserve ambulation, and upright posture.

You can do them as one fluid motion as she does and repeat for several repetitions throughout your day. She recommends starting first thing in the morning.

“The most basic thing you can do,” she says, “is sit up in your bed and roll out your feet either on a wooden rolling rack or a tennis ball. You’re stimulating the nerve endings in your feet, waking them up, then waking up your brain. Then just do these four little spinal movements. You can stay seated on the side of your bed. You’ll fold forward for flexion, you’ll fall backward for extension, then twist, and then you’ll bring your arm up and over the top of the head.”

As your day progresses, try the standing routine, she demonstrates here:

Watch Cecilia’s Fitness Class: Exercises for Parkinson’s Disease.