Joseph Pilates sought to understand the human body from the inside out. He emphasized moving the body from the core, or powerhouse. Studying the anatomy of the skeleton and its connection to your muscles will help you connect more deeply with your Pilates practice.To better understand Pilates and Human Anatomy, STUDIO B has now introduced our best selling skeleton model A10 to their students.This helps the students to understand the function and anatomy of the spine, core muscles, and body alignment. Human Skeleton Model for Sale!The Spine:Referred to as part of the axial, or central, skeleton, the spine is composed of 24 separate bones: seven vertebrae in your neck, 12 in your upper back and five in your lower back. At the bottom of your vertebral column you have five fused bones, which make up your sacrum, and four tiny fused bones that are your tailbone.The Rib Cage:The thoracic cage consists of 12 pairs of ribs which connect with the 12 thoracic vertebrae in the upper back. The ribs curve around the body and connect with your breastbone, or sternum, primarily through cartilaginous attachments. This allows your ribs to move as you breathe. Joseph Pilates emphasized breathing with the abdominal muscles strongly contracted: This practice forces the small muscles between your ribs to work much more intensely.The Upper Extremities:Your shoulders, arms, forearms, wrists and hands are collectively known as your upper extremities. Your collarbone, or clavicle, extends from your breastbone to your shoulder blade, or scapula. This is the only true bony connection of your arm to your torso. Your shoulder blade is attached via muscles and tendons to your upper back, which allows it considerable freedom of movement. Your upper arm bone fits neatly into a shallow socket of your scapula. The two bones in your forearm, your radius and ulna, connect to the upper arm bone to form the elbow joint. The eight bones in your wrist, the carpals, connect the five palm bones or metacarpals, and their associated 14 finger bones, or phalanges, to the arm itself. Pilates emphasizes moving the arms through their full range of motion by staying conscious of the feel of the bones moving against one another in their joints.The Lower Extremities:Your legs follow a similar structural pattern: One large supporting bone, the femur, or thigh bone, articulates with two smaller bones, the tibia and fibula of your shin region. There are only seven ankle bones, but they connect with the five metatarsals and the 14 phalanges of your feet. The kneecaps are actually embedded in the muscle of your thigh and help to provide leverage for walking. Your thigh bones in turn connect to your pelvis, which consists of two hip bones sandwiching the bottom of your spine, the sacrum and coccyx, between them. This arrangement restricts range of motion but ultimately provides much more stability for your lower limbs.References:by Amy Kreger , Demand MediaNational Institutes of Health: Skeleton: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia ImageBBC.co.uk: Science & Nature -- Human Body and Mind - Anatomy - Skeletal AnatomyAnatomy and Physiology, The Unity of Form and Function, 6th Edition; Kenneth S. Saladin
