Targeting tightness through Pilates

One of the biggest benefits of Pilates and a goal my clients often come in with is to increase their flexibility. The most measurable of which seems to be the ability to touch one’s toes, aka hamstring flexibility. Although possible, it is not always as straight forward as performing daily static stretches. It is important to address all of the contributing factors to “hamstring tightness” to achieve an increased range of motion and henceforth “flexibility” within these muscles. 

Read more

The Do’s & Don’ts for Sitting at Your Desk

Recently you may have read articles stating that “sitting is the new smoking”. These days the majority of us seem to spend a great deal of time sitting. We sit in a car, bus or train on our way to work, sit at our desks at work, sit to eat lunch and dinner, and then sit and watch tv in the evening. We were designed to move around, not to sit all day. Research has shown that we now spend as much as 80% of our working day seated and that sitting greater than 6 hours a day increases the risk of death by up to 40 %, even if you exercise regularly.

Read more

6 Ways Pilates Can Benefit Your Swimming

Swimming is one of those forms of exercise that we all know is good for the body. Not only does it build aerobic capacity but helps to strengthen and tone your muscles while improving core strength. However, whether you swim at an elite level or once a week for exercise, swimming can often result and pain and injuries to the shoulder girdle.

Read more

Reach your peak level with Pilates

It has long been established that to perform at a peak level, professional athletes train their bodies to the maximum, to push to new boundaries, to force their muscles to produce more power, speed, distance, strength and endurance. Every professional coach and athlete alike will attest to the fact that more often than not, there is a very fine line between maximum training load and overload causing injury and every distance athlete will agree, that they are constantly toeing that line. Pilates has long been hailed for its benefits with regards to strength, flexibility and stability and has been increasingly used in the professional Triathlon arena to complement training methods and help prevent injury.

Read more

There are 20 pairs of muscles in the neck, which can be divided into two main groups: the superficial sleeve and the deep sleeve. To stabilize the head on the body, there needs to be an adequate balance between the two groups. The primary role of the superficial sleeve is to allow movement in all directions to be produced. The deep sleeves role is to wrap around the vertebra of the neck and act as a stabilizer. Without enough activation of the deep sleeve, the contraction of the superficial muscles can cause a buckling action to the vertebra in the neck. Through Postural correction in Pilates and physiotherapy rehabilitation, we can strengthen these deep neck flexors to prevent neck pain and improve the overall spinal position.

Read more

Golf with Pilates

Are you trying to work on your golf swing and just not getting anywhere? Did you know that Pilates can improve your game and can help keep you injury free?  Pilates is a type of exercise that focuses on improving muscular strength, flexibility, coordination, balance and mobility and stability of the spine, shoulder, pelvis and hips.  All of these factors can lead to improved golf performance.

Read more

So what can you do about persistent pain?

Ask yourself if you could have some other biopsychosocial factors contributing to your persistent pain to help you better understand why you are still experiencing this pain well past the predicted timeframes. Read more

Opening the can of worms

The human body is an amazing structure, made up of many different cellular mechanisms that help it to grow, repair, change, move, adapt and function. It is no wonder that when it comes to understanding how everything works, there is still a multitude of information still yet to discover. This is particularly true in the case of chronic- or what has now been dubbed “Persistent” Pain.

Read more

The Do’s & Don’ts

Many women don’t cope well with strenuous exercise routines in abdominal/ core, combat and attack classes at the gym, even the LOW impact “options” within some of the Les Mills classes are really not considered “safe” for the pelvic floor in a lot of cases. Bladder weakness can be aggravated or caused through inappropriate exercise and it is very important to understand the effect of different sorts of exercise on the pelvic floor, to enable women to choose the correct exercise regime for them.

Read more