There are certain exercises in Pilates that clients look forward to every time they come to the studio. Short Spine Massage is one of them.
If you’ve done it before, you know the feeling.
You begin lying on your back on the Reformer with your feet in the leather straps. Before anything moves, you settle your spine onto the carriage. Your shoulders relax. Your neck is long. Your body is organized, connected, and ready.
Then the movement begins.
The movement begins from your center.
Your abdominals connect as your legs stretch out long. The triceps press firmly into the carriage as the hips lift and the spine rolls up. The carriage closes, the hips remain elevated, and the leather straps remain taut throughout the movement.
Then the knees bend.
Now comes the part that many people love most.
Using your muscles – not momentum – you massage your spine back into the carriage, one vertebra at a time. As each segment of the spine returns to the carriage, the body remains active and connected.
When you can no longer roll down any further, the abdominals guide the tailbone back to the carriage and the feet follow.
You’ve arrived back where you began.
Your spine settles into the carriage. The work softens. The body relaxes.
You take a breath.
Then you do it all over again.
Usually five times.
I love the rhythm of this exercise because it teaches an important lesson: not every muscle has to be working at full effort all the time.
In fact, one of the biggest challenges in Pilates is learning when to work and when to let go.
Many people arrive at Pilates carrying tension they don’t even realize they have. Their shoulders are working when they don’t need to be. Their neck is helping when it shouldn’t. Their jaw is clenched. Their hands are gripping.
Short Spine Massage teaches us something different.
I often think of it like an orchestra.
Not every instrument plays throughout the entire piece of music. Some are louder. Some are quieter. Some are waiting patiently for their moment. Yet they are all connected and working together to create something beautiful.
Your body works the same way.
Pilates isn’t about making one muscle stronger than another or overdeveloping one part of the body while neglecting another. Pilates balances the body, developing a more uniform body, just as Joseph Pilates describes in his book, Return to Life Through Contrology.
The body works as a system. Muscles support one another. Some take the lead while others assist. Then the roles change.
Each muscle contributes to the movement, but not all at the same time and not with the same intensity.
Short Spine Massage gives us the opportunity to feel that harmony over and over again.
By the fifth and final repetition, you’ve had several opportunities to deepen existing connections, discover new ones, or heighten your awareness of something you may have been missing up until this point.
That’s one of the gifts of Pilates. The same exercise can reveal something different each time you do it.
But your mind often feels calmer too.
Perhaps that’s because for a few moments, your attention has nowhere else to go. You’re focused on the movement, the breath, the timing, and the feeling of each vertebra returning to the carriage.
You are fully present.
And that’s why I love the phrase:
Settle your spine, ease your mind.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is learn how to work when it’s time to work, relax when it’s time to relax, and appreciate the rhythm between the two.
Just like Short Spine Massage, we settle ourselves, move with purpose, and then return to a place of ease before beginning again.
