Abdominal muscles activity and core stability in Pilates exercisers

Figures & Tables

	Disappointing	Poor	Good	Very good
Result	Pressure drop Lumbar spine extension	Pressure increase more than 10 mmHg	Pressure increase 8–10 mmHg No movements of the spine or pelvis	Pressure increase 0–8 mmHg No movements of the spine or pelvis
Interpretation	limited core stability; raising the limb causes extension in the lumbar spine	limited core stability; raising the limb causes flexion in the lumbar spine	good core stability	very good core stability

	Study group		Control group		Mann-Whitney U test
		Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Z
TRA muscle activity test	–4.16	6.21	–4.15	9.47	–0.584

	Disappointing	Poor	Satisfactory	Good
Result	Pressure drop Movements of the spine or pelvis	Pressure increase	Pressure drop 0–4 mmHg No movements of the spine or pelvis	Pressure drop 4–10 mmHg No movements of the spine or pelvis
Interpretation	limited ability to control TRA muscle tension, restricted stabilization of the spine and pelvis	abnormal activation of TRA muscle	basic ability to control TRA muscle tension	good ability to control TRA muscle tension

	Study group		Control group		Mann-Whitney U test
		Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Z
Lumbar spine stability test	9.34	10.88	11.15	7.26	–1.464