5 reasons why your back hurts DURING Pilates.

If you’ve ever had a sore back and have sought treatment for it, then no doubt you’ve heard something along the lines of:

“You need more core strength to reduce your ‘back pain’, you should go do Pilates”.

Yep every Physio and Osteo and Allied Health professional out there will likely say some version of this. 

And it’s true. 

Your spine is surrounded by what we call in Pilates, your Powerhouse, ie, the house or the area where all the power should be drawn from. You can think of it a bit like a cylinder around your trunk/middle, 360 degrees, front to back, side to side, top to bottom, each part or muscle plays a role in supporting the spine. When you can access and use each component equally and effectively (I have a whole other blog on the muscles that make up the powerhouse and how and what it means to use them equally and effectively), this then creates and improves stability, which allows you to generate power to build strength and improve mobility without pain or injury. 

If your powerhouse is not stable, then back pain can occur (among other things). 

Ok ok, you get it, you’ll go do the Pilates. BUT you’ve tried Pilates a few times and actually, in some things, your back pain is worse?! 

WTF is up with that? 

So you give up. 

Pilates has left a bad taste in your mouth and you just end up ‘putting up’ with back pain.

Does not sound like much fun really. 

This is a story I hear from time to time and it’s not ok. 

Here are some common things that might be going on:

1.You go to a group class.

When really you should be doing privates or semi-privates (at least initially anyway). You hear Pilates is great, your health professional tells you you need to do it, you know there’s a place down the road that Joe Blow goes to, so you think, ‘yep that’ll do, I’ll try that one too’. It’s got bright lights, loud music, seems fun with 20 reformers, but there’s no personal instruction, no modifications or amendments made for you and chances are instructor got their certificate over one weekend.

Yes it’s more expensive, yes it may have to mean you budget for it or have to figure out a way to afford it. Eg, maybe you only go out for dinner once a weekend instead of twice. But this is your health and wellbeing and longevity we’re talking about.  

If this is you, and you think Pilates is too expensive, then read this blog on Why Pilates Is Expensive.

2. You're doing too much.

You’re taking the optional progressions in group classes but you shouldn’t be (again, maybe you shouldn’t be in a group class in the first place). Remember Pilates is good for you, but only if you are working within your means and doing what YOU can do on that day and not trying to force yourself to do something you’re not ready for.

The grace we give ourselves when we are working out, is practice for the grace we give ourselves when we are doing life, business, family, friends, kids, husbands, wives and all the other things that can be hard but also rewarding.

3)  You’re doing too little. 

You expect that you can just go to your class, switch off from the world, mull over the problems you’re having at work and ponder what you’re going to cook for dinner while getting a workout done. So you go on autopilot mode, going through the motions and then wonder why you’re not making any progress or seeing any improvements. 

A central theme of Pilates is Concentration. You need to be focused in Pilates. You need to be present and in the moment. When you can focus your attention to the exercise at hand or what the teacher is trying to get you to do, you have a better chance at being successful in the movement. 

When we are concentrating and focusing our attention towards getting the right muscle engagement, then you learn to feel the muscles, you learn what it feels like when a muscle (or a group of muscles) is engaged.  Therefore your body awareness will increase and you can translate that into more mindful movement in every day life, like how you sit at your desk all day long. And how that does or does not contribute to the  back pain you’re experiencing and then you can draw on what you learnt in class when you were paying attention  to rectify it!

4) You’re not doing your homework.

Does your teacher advise you to get up from time to time from your desk and roll your shoulders out, or to bend or to twist? They’re not telling you that to fill up space in a conversation. They’re telling you that because your body needs it. Maybe they tell you to work on some rolling of the feet on a spikey ball because you get foot pain, which impacts the hip alignment and therefore your back.

What ever the extra curricula activity they are asking you to do between classes, try and do it. It will make your life easier and your time in class more rewarding as you will be able to move though more exercises that help build your strength and increase your mobility. 

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5) It’s not actually your back that is the source of the real problem.

Ever heard of referred pain? Sometimes, we feel the pain somewhere (eg your back), but that pain is actually referred from somewhere else in the body. 

It’s because of our nervous system and the mixed messages of the wiring to and from the brain about the source of the pain. 

Sometimes back pain can actually be caused by the pancreas, kidneys or colon. If you’ve tried Pilates, Physio, Acupuncture and all the things, it could be time to go and see your GP. 

So there you have it. 5 common reasons why you might still be experiencing that annoying back pain even though you have started a Pilates class. 

Personally, I am a huge advocate for Pilates and back pain. It’s something I live with every day. Or I should say, I manage it everyday. I have a spinal condition called Spondylolisthesis,  which is a minor disc slippage in the lower vertebrae. Most likely caused from all those years of gymnastics as a child when my spine was developing. I’ve written a blog on it, you can read it here (PS I give away free Pilates exercises in this blog too!). Pilates is literally the magical glue that keeps me together, so I will forever continue to sing its praises. 

Building Community - The Pilates Way.

Remember that strange time last year we called lockdown?!

Of course you do, it’ll probably be burnt into your brain for ever.

It definitely had it’s cons:

Like, in Melbourne, no shops were open (other then necessities), we couldn’t go further then 5 kms from your house, no playgrounds or schools open, maximum face to face interaction could only be done outside with one other person for one hour, doing some form of exercise. 

But let’s not forget the perks too:

Like that amount of forced down time (no plans or commitments) was refreshing boring and simple and calm. Lots of bonding time with your immediate family or the person/people in your household. No travel time to get to work or the extra curricula class you were taking. All those house chores and odd jobs got done.

Thankfully, I could still work during COVID’s lockdown. Just on Zoom. Thank goodness for technology hey?! And guess what? I still teach a mat class virtually, I have clients from all over the world. It’s not too late to join in. Replay available too.

We were in a situation where, our control over our daily choices was taken away from us for a long time so we turned our focus to what we could control, and when that comes to your immediate environment,  that included a large focus on what and how much we drank and ate. How many people have you heard talk about COVID kilos or how they should have bought shares in their local bottle shop (my hand is firmly up!!)

All that drinking, eating and down time has made me realise something, that I’m neither an extrovert nor an introvert but actually there is such a thing as an ambivert (yep, a combo of both!). Extroverts get their energy from other people, while introverts get their energy from turning inwards. The direction ambiverts lean toward varies greatly, depending on the situation. Ambiverts have a much easier time adjusting their approach to people based on the situation (Travis Bradberry for Forbes). It’s never really sat well with me to fully classify myself as one or the other, because I can thoroughly enjoy the both, for example:

1. I can perform tasks alone or in a group. I don’t have much preference either way.

2. Social settings don’t make me uncomfortable, but I tire of being around people too much.

3. Being the center of attention is fun for me, but I don’t like it to last.

4. I can get lost in my own thoughts just as easily as I can lose myself in a conversation.

5. Small talk doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but it does get boring.

6. When it comes to trusting other people, sometimes I’m skeptical, and other times, I dive right in.

Travis Bradberry from Forbes said that 2/3rds of people don’t strongly identify with being either an introvert or an extrovert, so maybe you can see yourself in these descriptions too? 

Where on the scale do you land?

With all this in mind, and given the shitshow that was 2020, I found the whole thing internally conflicting, like one part of me was loving lockdown life and the other part of me was not cool with it at all…while my introvert cup was overflowing at the brim, it was very hard to fill up my extrovert cup.

Another part of lockdown life I feel really impacted a huge area of my life, was my role as a parent. Given the schools were shut for almost two terms, homeschooling became a way of life for a while there. And since establishing the struggle  to socialise, there was no access to energising my extrovert self. I often thought the full brunt of that was probably experienced by my family the most (Sorry fam! Sorry for the things I said in lockdown!)

I also had all these unfulfilled dreams about how I would participate in my eldest sons first year of school life. When I was in primary school, I have these wonderful memories of my Mum coming into school to help with readers. She would come in and bring my friends and I treats while we would read books and tell funny stories. I just loved it so much. 

And I felt ripped off that I didn’t get to do that in my son’s first year of schooling.

I felt ripped off from being allowed to go into the school grounds to pick up and drop off my child. 

Ripped off from walking into the first ever classroom my son was going to spend time in, knowing who he would sit next to, where his locker would be, where would he put his lunchbox, his water bottle, his reader.

Ripped off from being allowed to walk through the hallways with a proud little boy by my side showing me his artwork and letters and numbers.

Ripped off from making relationships with other school parents, neighbours, school locals and teachers that will shape and influence my child’s early years.

This gate was as far as I got into the school grounds for most of last year.

And this is where I felt my extrovert self suffering again.

I want to know the community that my kid is going to spend the next 6 + years of his life, I want to know what’s going on with his little mates and his interactions. I’m well aware that there will come a time when he wants nothing to do with me, but while he wants me there, then that’s where I want to be. 

But alas, I can’t be there all the time…I still have to work. I also know I can not be a stay at home mum (hats off to the women that do do that!) The good thing about being in business for yourself, is you have some degree of say in the hours you keep. 

So I want my hours and my output to be at least partially in the community that my kids are apart of. I want to use my skills to build up and unite my community, given how much we couldn’t last year. That’s why, starting today (this blog was published on April 23, 2021), I am taking a Mat class at Moorabbin Primary School! In the school hall, after the morning school bell. It’s not just for parents of the school that can attend either, anyone local to the neighbourhood is welcome.

It’s a win-win in my book, by making connections and having a presence in the community, I feel energised. It gives me purpose and motivates me to know I am having a direct impact on my son’s friends parents. Those parents work on feeling strong, mobile, confident, connected, supported and will take that back to their homes with their kids. And those kids get to play with my son and hopefully the whole effect is catchy!  

I’m also so excited that I can donate a percentage of the profit each week to BayCISS (Bayside Community Information & Support Service Inc), a registered not-for-profit community charity providing an extensive range of services for community members living in Bayside and Kingston. 

The prospect of this class is really giving me life.  Teaching Pilates is a pretty rewarding career. I get to make people feel better in their body every damn day. Now I get to do this with people who I will get to know outside of the session too. I can see the positive impact with my own eyes and I’m so proud to be apart of that. 

If you are local to Moorabbin, Bayside, Victoria, Australia and want to join in on the fun, it’s not too late. New attendees are welcome each week. Check out this flyer for more details or contact me directly here. 

Why Pilates is ‘so expensive’.

It’s something I hear a lot. 

“Pilates is expensive”.

So why is it ‘so expensive’? 

Well firstly, becoming a Pilates Teacher does not happen over one weekend! 

A full comprehensively trained Pilates Teacher has completed a training program that was likely around or upwards of the 600 hour mark.

Back in 2013 I did my APEI certification around full time work.

Some of the APEI crew from Sydney

This includes all the on the job training in the year or two it takes to complete their studies. Practicing on bodies, observations, self-mastery, anatomy training, the diploma certification, workshops and seminars. 

 A good Pilates Teacher will be registered with their national regulatory body (hello membership fees!)  These organisations hold their members accountable and mandate the continuing education hours to at least 10 hours per calendar year.  They have standards to maintain, which is a good thing. Plus Pilates teachers need to have their liability insurance in order to legally teach you, and their first aid and CPR. 

Then there’s the cost of the equipment and props. Have you ever thought about buying a reformer?  You’ll need to save your pretty pennies, because those things ain’t cheap, minimum for a half way decent one will be around $6000. 

Doing a Pilates workshop with Jean Claude Nelson who had travelled from Munich, Germany. Obviously it was very serious by that look on my face!

Your Pilates Teacher does Pilates too! Yep, they must. In order to understand all the types of bodies, injuries, ailments and dysfunctions out there, they need to understand their own bodies. They will be having weekly privates (or semi-privates) with their mentor or teacher. 

Still though, sometimes we can know all this and think ‘yeah but it’s just a fitness pursuit and I don’t like spending more then $x amount on fitness pursuits. It’s not like they make results happen overnight anyway’. Correct, results do not happen over night. I would be suspicious if they did. Change happens when we commit, show up, listen, reflect, learn, apply, on repeat, week after week after week. 

Sometimes it’s easier to do things the way they’ve always been done. Maybe, you’ve only ever paid $60 a week for a gym membership where you get access to all the ‘bits’ a gym offers. 

But how many times in a year do you hurt your back/knee/shoulder/hip and then go to the Osteo/Physio/Chiro/Massage to get fixed, feel better, go back to the gym and repeat the cycle. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my allied health professionals, they have helped me immensely over the years with managing my back condition (I have Spondylolisthesis). But I’m also trying to dig deeper into the root cause. Why is my body like this? What can I do to support it better? What needs to change to minimise the pain?

Chances are you didn’t have those niggling and repetitive injuries when you were younger, your body was different then, you didn’t sit at your desk or your car for so long, you didn’t have kids to pick up and run around after, you didn’t spend so long slumped on the couch at night. 

You’ve changed, man. 

But your perception of fitness pursuits has not. 

We can’t expect different results, if we are doing the same thing over and over again.

If you are willing to spend money on fixing the problem, how about reviewing how you look at preventing the problem? Looking at your fitness pursuits through more of a health & wellbeing lens.

As we age, we notice more and more how our health impacts our wellbeing. When we feel healthy (in mind and body), we feel happy and more joyful.  And when we are happy with more joyful experiences in life, we seek out and make choices with health at the forefront of our mind. It’s a two way street. 

So how does Pilates help you experience more joy?

-Pilates helps to reduce pain points, aches and limitations so there are less restrictions on the way you move. With less restrictions, there are more opportunities to do the things you love and seek out those joyful experiences.

-Pilates does this by teaching you about alignment. Why and how we should stand tall. Pilates teaches you good posture and mindful habits to break the lifelong bad habits and non-helpful patterns our bodies do too much of.

-Pilates teaches you how to create space in the body so we can breathe better and fuller breaths.

-It teaches you how to build strength in ALL the muscles, not just the big ol’ dominant ones- hello quads and biceps, I’m looking at you guys having all the fun always!

-It teaches you the importance of active stretching throughout movement, not just passive stretching.

-It teaches you about your Powerhouse (not just your ‘core’ or stomach) and why building strength in your Powerhouse will create stability in your centre which allows you to do things for longer, with more efficiency, with less recovery time.

-Pilates teaches you how to hone your concentration skills. You have to actually think about where and what your muscles do to work properly for you. Which builds new pathways from brain to muscle so you can eventually automate good alignment, posture and muscle patterns. And as you practice this mind to muscle connection, it heightens your mindfulness, focus and clarity. It’s brain training, or as I like to put it, it’s Pilates Suduko. 

With the strength and stamina you build in the mind and the body in your Pilates class, you build the strength, stamina and confidence in the ‘real world’. When you have more confidence and less aches, pains and niggles, you try more things, there’s less limitations on what you set out to achieve, you seek out those opportunities that fulfil you. You do those things you love with confidence in your body to get you through. You get to experience those moments of joy and so you feel happier, more balanced, calmer, kinder and it’s darned amazing. Just imagine if everyone was doing Pilates, what a world that might be.  

So really, Pilates is more then just a fitness pursuit… 

And I bet it doesn’t sound so expensive now. 

Doing Pilates privately or semi-privately will give you and your teacher targeted one on one time to look at how your body moves, that will inform the way you practice, where the focus points will be, modifications, adaptations and specific progressions can be successfully integrated into a workout that will be challenging yet freeing for you and your body. 

Yes there are other options of Pilates out there, larger, on mass classes means it may cost less for you. And some times that is perfectly fine for some bodies and some situations. It might be a wonderful way to exercise, but there will be no hands on, no targeted expertise for you body, no time to reframe or modify an exercise, no personal direction or touch and sometimes for some bodies, this can sometimes lead to a worsening of the thing you wanted to try and fix in the first place. 

No body wants to feel worse after exercise. 

You’ve heard Pilates is good for you. It’s  not just me saying it. Maybe your Dr or Physio has suggested you need to work on your ‘core’. Just make sure you do your research. Interview your Pilates Teacher, as them if they have been comprehensively trained. Ask them if they have worked with back/shoulders/hip/knee problems before. Ask them if they have worked with postpartum clients. Ask them if they’ve worked with athletes. What ever you want to achieve in your body, be up front about it. The right teacher will be excited to work with you and your body and help bring your goals to life. The right teacher will ask you how your body feels at the beginning, during and after every session. They won’t be giving you a cookie cutter session plan for the average person, they will teach to the body in front of them, and that my friends, is worth it.  

Own Your Pilates Game and Own Your Life!

Pilates is a practice of accountability. 

The definition of being accountable, is- 

‘required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible'.

Doesn’t it feel good when you decide to do something hard and then you do the hard thing and then you can bask in that feeling of accomplishing that hard thing?

Hard things for you may (or may not be):

• Climbing up a slide the wrong way to play tag with your child

• Pitching to a group of colleagues and clients about your latest game changing idea

• Saying no to that family member who constantly asks to much of you

• Swimming at the beach in your swimsuit for the first time in 20 years

• Training for and completing that half marathon

The list could go on and on…

What got you to the point where you could do that hard thing?

Practice, positive self talk, commitment, embracing and owning the fear and then moving past it, changing your mindset. 

Maybe you externalise the motivation? Doing it for your kids, doing it for the greater good of the family, doing it so I can fit into that dress next month. 

Maybe it’s an activity you want to be a habit? So you do it even when the motivation isn’t there. You push past the lethargy, and feelings of sluggishness because you know the habit will serve you well. 

It’s a bit like a Pilates practice. 

It can be scary at first. Trying new things. Going outside of your comfort zone. Pushing the boundaries. 

But, the more you show up for yourself, the more you will be winning at life. 

The more good habits in your life, the less chance there is for bad ones to take over.

That’s why I always hold my clients accountable. Accountable for showing up. Accountable for giving it go. Accountable to the practice. Because when you practice hard things and commit to them, you are essentially practicing life. 

• When your kid’s parent-teacher interview is cancelled, you reschedule.

• When a court case is adjourned you plan for when it recommences.

• When a lockdown in a pandemic steals your birthday plans, you reschedule them.

• When wet weather derails your outdoor wedding plans, you move the wedding inside, it’s called a ‘back up ‘plan aka plan B.

• When you can’t make your normal Pilates session you reschedule it so that your body doesn’t miss out/lose the benefits/gains you’ve made so far. It might not be your ideal time for that week, but it’s your plan B.

Something I hear a lot from my clients is ‘jeez whiz, you can really feel it when you miss a class’.

Yep you can.

Your body has worked hard to feel good, it needs that consistent input of instruction and movement to continue to develop new muscle memory and pathways. Once you start Pilates, and you start to feel and notice the benefits, so does your body. It knows what it’s  like to feel good. It will crave space and length and freedom in movement, it will appreciate being challenged in news ways, it will make you feel strong and connected. When you start missing classes, it feels a bit like taking one step forward and then two steps back. 

So how much do you want to achieve that goal? 

• To run faster.

• To have less back pain.

• To be able to keep up with the grandkids.
  
  

• To be able to lift heavier weights.

• To return to golf with out knee pain.

• To be in control of your body and not your body in control of you.

• To be able to sit at your work desk without neck pain.

Now it’s up to you not to miss your Pilates class, so you can reach your goal sooner. 

When you reach that goal, then you gotta work to sustain and maintain it.   Make it a habit so that on those sluggish days, you don’t have to rely on motivation, make it a habit that is so hard to break, that on those one off occasions you have to miss a session, you schedule in two classes the next week, to get yourself right where you left off. Showing up for your Pilates is showing up for yourself, it’s like your own little personal cheer squad cheering you on, rooting for you and high fiving you when you score!  

I know how it feels when I miss a session, not good, not good at all.  And I will do whatever I can for my clients to not experience that too. That’s a part of my job that I take seriously. 

So the next time you cancel your class and your Pilates teacher says sure thing, can we reschedule? Know that it is coming from a place of wanting to  see you win, win at achieving those goals, win at sustaining those goals and winning at life. Your teacher is in your corner, cheering you on, rooting for you, high fiving your achievements (maybe not outwardly- hello, social distancing- but definitely on the inside)  along the way!    

Why the principles of Pilates will make your life better.

I’ve just spent the first part of this year taking all my clients through the 6 principles of Pilates.

One principle a week for 6 weeks. 

Instead of using a body part or a prop as a point of focus for the class, it was a principle. 

And it was great (yep, I do say so myself!)

When I first started Pilates, the principles were an arbitrary thing for me. Principles, sminciples.

This is what I was concerned with- ‘I’ll go home and do 50 reps of this stomach series thing I learnt in class today’ or  ‘Who cares about how I breathe, as long as I’m working on my 6 pack’.

Oh no, 25 year old me was not vain or shallow at all, haha! 

The 6 principles are:

1) Breath

2) Precision 

3) Centering 

4) Control 

5) Concentration

6) Flow

Why do they matter?

Let me explain:

1) Breath- literally the reason we live and exist. But do you live and exist to your fullest? 

Yes breathing is autonomous- thank goodness. But that doesn’t mean we are all doing it in the best way possible. 

The breath is so powerful. It is a direct pathway to our para-sympathetic nervous system. The system that can make us calm the F down. Now, I don’t know about you, but calming the F down is a great skill to work on when you have kids, a job, a husband/wife, a house, family, pets, a conscience.

Couple a calmed nervous system with a boost of endorphins that you get from moving your body around, and hello happiness. That’s why exercise is addictive, it makes you happy from the inside out. It keeps you sane. And if you can learn to breath properly through exercise to get the most out of it, it will give you clarity, the ability to concentrate more, to relief stress and manage pain.

Breathing also heals. Big, full, proper, expansive breaths will send oxygenated blood all around the body. That blood will fill up and filter through all the little nooks and crannies around the body (technical Pilates term ‘nooks and crannies’) And blood heals. Fresh, oxygenated, clean blood aids in healing muscles tears, dysfunctional joints and maximising performance. 

2) Precision- Jospeh Pilates was a bit of a stickler for form. And rightfully so in most cases I think. Ultimately, good form and precision of movement/ body placement has the power to change bad habits! Bad habits with our form and posture that creep in over a lifetime and can end up causing so much alignment problems, that people live with all sorts of pain that they don’t even have to be living with. 

Precision is about learning to initiate movements from the right part of your body and with the appropriate effort.

For example, we don’t walk around on the balls of our feet all day long, it would cause some muscles in the feet and legs to over work and other muscles to under work. As you can imagine this would cause all sorts of muscles imbalances, and then under any load or endurance, this could make things very painful.

Pilates teaches you how to stand correctly on your feet, sit correctly, lie correctly, you will learn about foot placement and foot effort through every exercise, so that the precision you learn in the studio or class can translate into the form you use in the real world.

Once you have precision you have quality movement. That’s why in Pilates you don’t need to do 100 reps of anything. Quality over quantity every time! 

3) Centering- Your centre in Pilates is not just your 6 pack (although 25 year old me sure as hell thought  it was).

In Pilates, your Centre is also referred to as your Powerhouse. Your Powerhouse is all the muscles from your ribs to your hips in the front, in the back and around the sides- think of them like a girdle of muscles that we want to strengthen to help stabilise your spine and pelvis. Then, we definitely can not forget about the booty muscles- they are part of the Powerhouse too. Lesley Logan has famously called this region your Tharse, where your thighs meet your arse! 

In Pilates, the premise is that we work from the centre first, this is where we draw our strength and stability from, then we work our extremities (arms and legs) from a strong and table place.

I love how all the muscles are invited to a Pilates Party! The host of this Pilates party is the Powerhouse, but they are very friendly hosts and invite the whole neighbourhood (body) along, but not before the hosts have a strong and stable environment to invite all those guests in. Nothing worse than inviting people into a house and the the ground falls out from under you! Those guests would not come back! 

4) Control- Before Pilates was called Pilates, it was called Contrology. It was’t until after Joseph Pilates died in 1967 that it was named after his namesake. 

I think once you know this, it’s clear to see just how much importance Joseph put on being able to have control over the body. 

And I think it becomes clearer as we get older, if you live a sedentary life and overall poor health choices, your body starts to be in control of you. Whether that be, illnesses, ailments, injuries, these things start to dictate our life and the choices we make. No longer do we choose to partake in life as much, because sadly, it hurts. 

So when I think of control, I think of putting yourself back in control of your body. You are in the driver’s seat. Wouldn’t it be nice to make decisions based on what brings you joy and happiness and not because you are worried your back will play up or your knee will hurt?

One of Joseph Pilates’ students said ‘Pilates is stretch and strength with control- control is what is most important because it uses your mind’. When you can exercise control over your mind, you can execute exact movement in the body. And it’s that exact movement (hello precision- see principle 2 above) that will change bad habits, poor alignment, build strength and increase mobility.

5) Concentration- There is a fun little imagery exercise that I like to do with my clients when we focus on this principle. It’s called the Lemon Imagery Exercise. I highly recommend you get someone to read it to you while you take a comfy seat or lie down on the floor. It’s a little different but it highlights just how powerful the mind is on the physical body. 

Look, if you have ever done Pilates and you are thinking of how much washing you have to do when you get home or what you’re going to cook for dinner later that day, then you’ll know that basically, you’ve got no chance at it. You need to be focused. You need to be present and in the moment. When you can focus your attention to the exercise at hand or what the teacher is trying to get you to do, you have a better chance at being successful in the movement. 

The benefits of being mindful and participating in mindful movement are huge, not only can we reduce stress (see principle 1 above), but we can also reduce blood pressure and manage pain better. 

When we are concentrating and focusing our attention towards getting the right muscle engagement, then you learn to feel the muscles, you learn what it feels like when a muscle (or a group of muscles) is engaged.  Therefore, your body awareness will increase and you can translate that into more mindful movement in every day life, like how you sit at your desk all day long. You’ll start to be more efficient with your posture and how you hold yourself in everyday tasks, from driving and washing dishes, to cycling and running.

6) Flow- In 1925 Joseph Pilates moved from England to New York. He set up his first American studio under the New York Ballet school, you could say that some of his exercises were executed with the influence of helping an injured ballet dancer recover to full strength, poise and grace. And what a beautiful thing. If you’re a ballet dancer. But most of us are not ballet dancers. So being able to flow like a ballet dancer and being able to flow like a regular human being are two different things. 

To me, getting my clients to move with ease in the class means they have a better chance of being able to move with ease in the real world. How we move into and out of exercises (the transitions) becomes a focus point when we are trying to find more ease and flow in movement.

When you ride a busy tram (or a bus or some other public transport), it’s not just how you stand up in the vehicle eg, standing up with your powerhouse switched on (see principle 3 above) in preparation to withstand any bumpy rides. It’s how you get up off the seat at the tram/bus/train stop- do you need to hold onto something? It’s how you get up the giant steps of the tram/bus/train- do you trip up them or over your own feet? It’s how you hold your backpack or satchel over your shoulder- do you off load the one sided weight through hip hiking? All these other ‘transitional’ movements get you onto the tram, but are they the movements causing you more trouble than the movement of riding the tram itself?! 

I hope I have helped to highlight just how important Pilates Principles are, not just for a good Pilates class, but for everyday life! 

Come and experience how I turn these principles into exercises, reach out to me here to enquire about how we can get Pilates in your life!