Pilates for Glaucoma
- Bianca Beach
- Apr 10, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 13, 2025
In this post I want to tell you all about my journey finding pilates and discovering in the process of teacher training that it was the best thing I could have ever done for my eyes. It’s a long one, but stick with me. Your vision is worth it. I will link research I’ve found along the way about the benefits of movement (for eye health, specifically) at the bottom, and reiterate that movement is power. Power over your own body, on your own terms. Practicing pilates for Glaucoma can not only prevent you from losing more vision, but protect your body as a whole and set you up for success to live freely. We all know from the volume of research that’s been done that exercise has exceptionally positive effects on our bodies and their longevity, as well as injury/disease prevention and mobility in our later years of life. “Move it or lose it” couldn’t be more true, and this includes our eyes; Foresight is a product of necessity, so as Glaucoma patients we can all reap the benefits of movement that are advertised everywhere. The Glaucoma Research Foundation states, “When individuals engage in regular aerobic activities, the body’s overall blood flow increases, which includes the blood supply to the eye structures. Improved blood circulation provides essential nutrients and oxygen to the eye, promoting healthier eye function and potentially reducing the risk of damage caused by high IOP.” The unique benefit of pilates is that it incorporates aerobic movement (cardio endurance) with anaerobic movement (muscle strength) in a naturally low-impact way. Aerobic movement is typically what we as patients hear to try first: walking, swimming, biking; but anaerobic movement is what will protect and improve our muscle mass, bone density, metabolism, weight management, and strength as we age. Both are equally important, and pilates is the ideal baseline of both forms.
When I started Pilates, I was in so much sciatic pain to even truly consider if it would be alright for my eyes. I was 19, barely able to walk without wincing, when my physical therapist recommended pilates to help me get stronger. I was secretly concerned if I would be able to physically do it at all. What if I was too weak? I had no background in sports, and my eyes even got me out of PE in high school. Taking Spanish instead wasn’t going to help my core survive 55 minutes of who-knows-what.
My initial reaction was not to try; it had been drilled into my head for the last 8 years that “moving is dangerous for my eyes,” and because I had such a visceral fear of being thrown back into emergency surgery, I had subconsciously trained my brain during those 8 years to think, “moving = blindness.” After some insistence from my PT, I finally decided to take a class; the pain I was in at the time overruled the memory of post-surgery pain, so I took a risk.
I left my first class in tears of relief. For the first time in years, I wasn’t cold. I could feel the blood flow in my legs, feel the use of my body without having over-strained it, and it hit me: this is how I get power over how I feel. All I could remember for years was that my health was in the hands of others: my parents, my doctors, then my physical therapists. I felt like I had never really had a say, and if I was in pain or had a problem, I had only ever known to go to someone else to fix it. I got in my car and the switch flipped in my brain - I’m an adult now, and I get to be in charge. I decided that meant I wasn’t going to rely on pilates instructors to help me feel better, that they couldn’t be yet another set of professionals in charge of my health. I was going to become one for myself.
It was only towards the end of my training program at BASI Pilates headquarters that I really started to enjoy the art of teaching. BASI is the most exceptional, classical, world-wide training available, and I was lucky to have been recommended to their rigorous program. In college and at the time of the pandemic, it took me two years to complete my training, but having my program stalled meant it gave me more time to get myself out of pain and into a headspace where I developed an overwhelming empathy for others in physical pain. Pilates had helped me so much that by the time I got my certification, I was excited to share my knowledge! I still get very excited when a client walks into the studio and says they have sciatica, because it gives me the chance to help free them from the pain I used to know too well. Over my years of teaching, I began to notice that people are generally very open about discussing their physical injuries with me, but I have only ever heard a client say they have Glaucoma if I offer the information about myself first. And even then it is usually someone the client knows who has Glaucoma; in having taught over 1,500 classes I have probably only met 5 people that had Glaucoma (that I knew of). I started to wonder: why doesn’t anyone tell me they have Glaucoma when I ask about injuries/illnesses? I think it’s because those of us with Glaucoma aren't doing pilates, but more than that: people aren't moving at all. Why is that?
Simply put, we are fearful. Losing vision is one of the scariest things that can happen to us because it suddenly launches us into a state of dependence on others for survival. I have family members that are fully blind, and everyone around them is always helping to make daily tasks doable. But in the face of losing more vision as Glaucoma patients, we are doing the worst possible thing for our eyes in keeping still. Movement is power, and the research shows this is especially crucial for those that have not exercised before: “Results of a meta-analysis showed that exercise in sedentary people had a greater IOP lowering effect than it did in people who were already active” (Roddy G et al. 2014). I think I reaped the benefits of this particular piece of research, and I’ll tell you how.
In late 2020, I was a junior in college at Chapman University when my doctors and I discovered through routine pressure checks and visual field tests that I had been losing vision at an alarming rate for about two years. How had we not seen this sooner? Well, I was doing visual field tests 6 to 8 months apart, so having 2-3 recent tests was not enough to conclude anything was really wrong. I then left the country at the beginning of 2020 to study abroad in London, ultimately getting caught in the uprising of the Covid-19 pandemic that sent me home and into a sedentary lockdown, missing tests. During lockdown I did part of my pilates training on Zoom, and rarely went in to see my doctors. When I finally did go back to have another visual field done, something was then clearly wrong. I started going into the office every week in October so we could monitor my IOP in response to the onslaught of eye drops as a first line of defense. Around the same time, my pilates training re-opened its studio for the students to come in at limited numbers and practice. I wanted to start getting ready for my certification exam, and I needed to complete 200 hours of self-practice. I could do mat work at home, but I was never as motivated as I was in the studio with the other students. Over the next few months I began my first ever period in my life of consistent exercise, and after four SLTs (an in-office laser procedure) and honing my drop regimen, my pressure finally lowered and stabilized. I have not lost vision since. Looking back on this time in my life makes me realize how many things were working against me that expedited my vision loss, and how many things came together at once to help stop it. I’m sure it was a combination of everything, but I have a strong suspicion that my pilates practice played a major role in securing my visual future. Another article says, “Each incremental increase in activity was associated with less decline in VF, although the observed effects were small. But significantly boosting those levels each day—walking an additional 5,000 steps, engaging in an additional 2.6 hours of nonsedentary activity, or exercising for 120 minutes at a moderate-to-vigorous level—decreased the average rate of VF loss by approximately 10%” (Lee MJ et al. 2018). There is little doubt in my mind that pilates did not contribute to an extra 10% reduction in my IOP; my doctors wanted it to go from 28 to below 20, and now I am consistently reading between 14-17 in both eyes.
But here’s the catch: not all movement is safe for our eyes. In my research I read a lot about the dangers of inversions (head below heart), strain in our heads from breathing incorrectly, and high-impact workouts that included a lot of heavy weight. The nuance of exercising for Glaucoma is in the modifications that need to be made for us, often simple, but took five years of my life to master through an extremely heightened sense of body-awareness and knowledge base. This is what makes Foresight unique for those of us with Glaucoma - I have taken my own pilates practice and put it out there for you, so we can all benefit from that extra 10%. It is unlikely that I would trust an instructor other than myself with an exercise program for my body and my eyes with my background; BUT there are many instructors and trainers I know where I could rattle off a list of requirements for an exercise or modified option, and they'll know their craft well enough to point me in the correct direction. The problem most Glaucoma patients face is that they don’t know what to do or how to communicate their needs to a trainer, and end up doing downward dog in a yoga class, skyrocketing their pressure. My goal with Foresight and my duty to my community is to provide everyone with a pre-modified option. My youngest pilates client ever was 12, and my oldest was 94. EVERYONE can do pilates, and for the first time, everyone with Glaucoma can, too. We hold the power in movement, and I encourage you never to leave your health in solely the hands of your doctors, no matter how wonderful they are! Your doctors will tell you to exercise with caution, and I will show you how.
If you’d like to read more in-depth research, please see the articles linked below, or check out my published paper on pilates for Glaucoma on the About page!
Research
Glaucoma and Exercise - What to Tell Your Patients
American Academy of Ophthalmology
Sports, Exercise, and Glaucoma: Safe Practices and Recommendations
Glaucoma Research Foundation
Ocular hypertension: 5 causes of high eye pressure
All About Vision
Exercise for Glaucoma Patients
Cascadiaeye
Intraocular Pressure and Glaucoma: Is Exercise Beneficial or a Risk?
National Library of Medicine
Physical exercise and glaucoma: a review on the roles of physical exercise on intraocular pressure control, ocular blood flow regulation, neuroprotection and glaucoma-related mental health
Wiley Online Library
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