I AM A PRACTITIONER WITH SCOLIOSIS CLIENTS
How to help your clients own their scoliosis
Scoliosis is confusing. Let’s be honest—it just is! The problem is, you don’t have time for confusion; you have a scoliosis client and they need help now. You need to properly assess their body, create an engaging lesson plan, and figure out if that lesson actually helped. How do I know? Because I have scoliosis, and so do most of my clients. I’ve devoted my professional career to studying Pilates, scoliosis, and the benefits of movement. I can help you simplify this whole process, starting with the checklist below.
2. READ "How to Perform a Scoliosis Physical Assessment"
It’s imperative that you know how to quickly analyze a scoliotic body, and this skill takes time to perfect. This post will teach you how to analyze.
3. READ "Scoliometer Tracking"
This blog post will help you understand what research says about a scoliometer and why it’s important to use one.
4. DOWNLOAD the Scoliometer by Spiral Spine App
A scoliometer helps measure vertebral rotation. A decrease in rotation is correlated with movement that is good for your client’s scoliosis and helps untwist their spiral spine. You need to measure your client’s back with the scoliometer at the beginning and end of every session to know if the lesson you just gave helped or hurt their back.
If you need a tutorial on how to use a scoliometer, you can watch the intro video in the Starting Point Series.
5. DOWNLOAD the Scoliometer Tracking Chart
This chart will help you easily track your client’s scoliometer measurements, and also has a place for notes. Things that are beneficial to note in this column are activities that have affected your client that week (illness, long car rides, lots of lifting, etc.), exercises that were beneficial, or tight muscles you noticed. You’ll begin to see patterns as to what helps your client’s body unwind the most and what winds it up.
6. READ Analyzing Scoliosis
This book was written for you, and will teach you many of my own techniques for working with scoli clients.
7. WATCH Untwisting Scoli: Maya or Analyzing Scoliosis
These videos will teach you how to put the techniques mentioned above into a Pilates lesson.
Untwisting Scoli: Maya | Analyzing Scoliosis
If you work with special populations, I recommend two other videos. If your clients have had scoliosis spinal fusion surgery, watch Scoliosis Spinal Fusion. If you work with children, I suggest, Scoliosis with Kids.
If you need other ideas on home & studio workouts for your clients, I suggest the Scoliosis Series of videos I created for Balanced Body.
8. PRACTICE
These techniques aren’t learned overnight. Find someone you can practice teach them to. If you need more help, I’m available for virtual private instruction. Feel free to contact my studio to book a session. You can also take a scoliosis workshop with me.
9. ASSEMBLE your dream team
This team will help keep your clients feeling their best. Ideally it includes a movement practitioner (you - but it's always good to know other types of professionals you'd trust with your clients) and a trained body worker. While movement is important, it is not the only key to living a pain-free life. A skilled body worker will help relax tight muscles your clients may not even know they have. Again, you’ll want to look for someone who works with scoliosis patients or who is open to listening to you and learning how to care for your clients' unique bodies. If you need more information on different kinds of body workers, watch video 5 in the Starting Point Series.