If you are a computer potato, or a T.V. addict, or if you are plain lazy, you have probably had some lower back aching at one point or another in your life. Am I right?. Enter Tangolates. With Tangolates you will be able to work your whole body while at the same time relaxing your tensions in such a way that all aches and pains and discomforts vanish in thin air. Yes. When you are having a good time, you cannot get tensioned, upset or uptight. You don’t believe me? Let’s try.
Turn the music on and start moving with its rhythm. O.K? are you with it? Now try to frown. Try to get angry; try to make a fist. You can’t, can you? See, the best physical therapy for bodily pain is joy, happiness, pleasure, and lots and lots of endorphins flowing. Call it what you want. The fact is… it works!
A Method For All Seasons
It is not true that Tangolates is for 30-40 years old only. Tangolates, like Tango, is for all ages. The same goes for Pilates. It is just not true that Pilates is only for older people. Young people also get into the swing of Tango, of Pilates, and, of course, of Tangolates. Yet, because it is considered one of the safest sets of exercises there exists, Tangolates is used to rehabilitate middle-age-and-over patients. Let’s see.
Parkinson
Parkinson is one of the neural-degenerative illnesses that have been studied the most. After Alzheimer, it is the second more prevalent of all neurological illnesses, and one that has shown some substantial advances in the last years.
In general, Parkinson may appear after fifty, but gets more frequent in people who are sixtyfive years of age or older. One percent of the population may get Parkinson disease and this percentage applies to any race or ethnic group.
Some of the famous who suffer from Parkinson disease and lived a long life with it, are the last Pope, John Paul II; the boxer Mohamed Ali, and the actor Michael Fox
The most common symptoms of this illness are: freezing, tremors, slow motion, postural instability, and depression.
Freezing
When the problem is movement, the solution is movement. In other words, the best thing to do for a patient of Parkinson besides taking the medication, (L-Dopa), is to move, move, and move. The absolutely worst thing that one can do when faced with Parkinson is to stay still. The feeling of being rooted to the ground (freezing), gets only worse if one doesn’t keep moving.
Tangolates is an excellent method of exercise for Parkinson patients because the movements are rhythmical, ordered, systematic, coordinated and controlled.
I have seen patients of Parkinson at rehabilitation wards working away with such fluid motion that it was hard to believe they are not totally healthy!
Control of their tremors and coordination of their arms and legs are two of the things they most need and they most appreciate getting from Tangolates. The key word here is rhythm. Parkinson patients react very well to Tangolates because it provides rhythm like no other method of exercises does.
Tremors
Another common symptom of the Parkinson disease is the tremor of the hands, and the contortionist-like involuntary movements of the whole body.
In testing the medication, the doctor usually tests the improvements made by the patient by asking him to make a sweeping movement, either with the hand or with the leg or foot. Here one has to be very careful, as the movements the patient does may be deceptive. These mechanical movements can in fact synchronize with the typical tremor of the hand characteristic of the illness. That is why the doctor tells his patients to move his arm or his leg in wide sweeping movements. The hallmark of the Tangolates method is that each exercise addresses this very same problem.
Slow Motion
Patients of Parkinson get very slow. This leads many a patient to get disillusioned and stop trying to move altogether, thus, giving free way to a sedentary type of life. Wrong, never let that happen!
Once a sedentary type of life has gained control over the patient, he has lost a significant part of his or her capacity to fight the battle. This is why Tangolates is especially good for Parkinson patients and why it has become the preferred discipline of some rehabilitative programs.
Postural Instability
Lets take a typical way to test the evolution of Parkinson: ask the patient to stand still. While he is standing up, one give him or her a little push on the chest. A person without that particular decease would resist the push or will immediately place his foot backwards to gain the stability he needs in order not to fall. But a Parkinson patient will lack the fast reaction that is needed and will remain still and perhaps fall down, as a consequence of that little push.
The fact is: nothing better than Tangolates to improve stability and balance. After all, balance is what Tango is all about…and Pilates too!
A time For Happiness
Having a baby?
O.K., here is a Tangolates puzzle for Pregnancy: what are the three most important things Tangolates helps a pregnant woman with? The answer is: the P.B.S. (Posture, Breathing, Strengthening the pelvic floor)
‰ Posture, because a big belly will always get a woman out of balance.
‰ Breathing, because in the delivery she will be really needing it.
‰ Strengthening, because her pelvic muscles should be as strong as possible now that baby is growing and exerts pressure on the pelvic floor.
The truth is: Tango would not be what it is if it did not emphasized strong pelvic muscles (as well as a pelvis in neutral position). Now, I ask: Is it important for a woman who is carrying a baby in her belly to have strong abdominal and pelvic muscles? Is it? Well, then, Tangolates is the answer!.
Tangolates is all about posture. Have you ever seen Tango dancers not stand straight and elegant?
And what about Pilates and good breathing? Do you know that Joseph Pilates was so obsessed with good breathing that he invented a little machine, the “breathometer”? With the “breathometer” he tested the breathing of his clients. He made them breath always in a neutral pelvis position and he insisted that one should breath with the abdominal and respiratory muscles only.
Pregnant Core
There are four differentiated areas: the abdominal muscles, the lower back, the gluteous, and the pelvic floor. Almost all Tangolates exercises begin with and in this area. The main muscles here are almost all the deep muscles. They are difficult to see, but they are there.
The transversus abdominalis, the external and internal obliques and the gluteous maximus. They all strengthen the most important area of a pregnant woman’s body.
As baby grows he starts putting more and more pressure on the pelvic floor. If the Pelvic floor is not properly strengthened, It could give in under the pressure producing lower back pain and sometimes even incontinence.
The Pelvic Floor
We talk about the pelvic floor a lot, but, do we really know what it is and where it is located? Let me guess. Uh… no, not really.
I thought so.
Deep muscles are difficult to locate. The best thing to do is to try to visualize them. I have one way of “seeing” the pelvic floor that never fails. It goes like this: imagine you are dying to go to the bathroom. I mean, you really have to go. But there is no bathroom around. So you have to hold it. Well, that muscle that holds it, that one, yes, precisely that one, is what we call the pelvic floor.
A Matter of Posture
Every woman wants a flat belly. Right?
Wrong.
Well, sometimes they don’t.
When a woman is expecting a baby, she changes her attitude about her belly. She starts looking at it with loving eyes. In fact, she is really proud of her growing belly. The more it grows, the prouder she gets.
Pregnant women often caresses their belly. She says it is because it is heavy. Not true. She caresses it because she loves it. This is what is usually called “pregnant woman’s pride”
But the pregnant woman’s pride has a little problem, and it is called posture. As she proudly pushes her belly forward, she creates an exaggerated curve in the lower back, in the lumbar zone. This, in turn produces temporary pain and sometime even chronic pain.
