I do occasionally use the odd bit of equipment….
Pilates is the foundation to an improved lifestyle
Whether this be walking the dog, playing golf or running marathons, or simply feeling more comfortable seated at your desk. Pilates builds resilience and corrects habitual poor movement patterns. Weak muscles do not serve us well and chronically contracted muscles sap energy and tire quickly.
Pilates eases long term discomfort and noticeably improves your posture.
Pilates can help restore strength and mobility after injury.
Pilates is often the answer, post operation or injury, when other more dynamic forms of exercise may be contraindicated. Physiotherapists and Doctors frequently recommend pilates as part of the recovery program once the initial trauma has settled.
Pilates encourages efficient and graceful movement.
Pilates eases and releases fascia, the dewy spider’s web of communicating connective tissue that wraps every cell and pervades every organ, muscle and bone throughout our entire body. In a healthy state it moves and glides distributing stress forces and allowing good communication from one part of the body to another. Sometimes our lifestyle compromises this fluid give and take, and this can result in that stiffness and lack of movement we are all familiar with to some degree. It is possible for this trauma to become as much a mental impasse as a physical one, Mindful Pilates helps breakdown these barriers, allowing a person to clarify their thought processes and to move more freely.
This is a short video of our living fascia, greatly magnified. I think it is both fascinating and beautiful. It is a ceaseless fractal pattern of diverging and reuniting strands that responds to movement in any direction. The liquid nature of fascia is immediately apparent; this is what we seek to maintain so that we as can move freely as possible. Given that fascia wraps every single part of our bodies – it isn’t hard to see why we get restricted range of movement if this watery web dries out and stiffens. Film courtesy of Dr Jean Claude Guimberteau