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Archives For November 30, 1999

What’s wrong with Pilates? Part 2

January 16, 2013 — 5 Comments

There’s not enough THRUSTING

In a recent conversation with a personal trainer, he made the observation that the components of functional training are: “pushing, pulling, lunging, squatting and twisting”. Similarly, Mark Sisson refers to PEMs (Primal Essential Movements): Squats, Pull-ups, Push-ups & Planks.

A search of the web for components of functional exercise offers up the following “4 Pillars of Human Movement” (coined by ‘fitness maverick’, JC Santana): Standing and locomotion; Level changes in the body’s centre of mass (e.g.. squats, lunges etc.); Pushing & Pulling; Rotation.

Dr. Richard A. Schmidt (author of various books on motor control and learning) defined the six basic human movements as: squat, bend (deadlift), lunge, push, pull and twist.

CrossFit’s Training Guide describes Functional movements as those: “…that mimic motor recruitment patterns that are found in everyday life….Squatting is standing from a seated position; deadlifting is picking any object off the ground.”

You’re probably getting the gyst, and may be wondering what this has to do with Pilates. Well, Pilates is about teaching movement, and hopefully we can all agree that it’s a much better idea to be teaching functional movement over non-functional (isolation) movements.

One of the common themes to these lists is the presence of hip extension, which the CrossFit Training Guide (yes, I’m preparing for my Level 1 certification…) describes as”..the foundation of all good human movement” adding: “..without powerful, controlled hip extension you are not functioning anywhere near your potential.” Perhaps as a result of what I’ve learned from regular sessions of CrossFit, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with hip extension, and aware that the great majority of people that I see, both in classes and in the street, seem to be lacking ‘normal’ hip function.

Surely this is where Pilates should be coming in, and spanking everyone into good function? There’s lots of hip extension in Pilates, certainly when it comes to the equipment repertoire, (not so much in the mat work), so what am I on about? Here’s the thing – we typically approach hip extension, in Pilates, from a static trunk position. Take leg springs lying supine, or feet in straps on the reformer – both great exercises for teaching people how to move at their hip joint without compensating with their spine – but not allowing full hip extension. This doesn’t teach us that much about being upright. In addition, legs move in relation to the trunk, and there is very little Pilates repertoire that requires us to extend our hip joints by doing the opposite (trunk moving in relation to legs, or both moving simultaneously).

It’s been amazing to me to discover, both in myself and other Pilates teachers, how common the inability to dynamically extend the hips seems to be. When I was first asked, from a standing position, to flex at my hips and my knees, keeping my trunk stiff (something like the appropriate position from which to pick an object up from the ground), and then extend at my knees and hips to return to vertical, I couldn’t seem to do it without adding in some kind of spinal articulation. The short version of that rather wordy sentence is: ‘ I couldn’t thrust my hips’. Wanting to consider myself moderately virile, that’s a pretty humiliating discovery.

One of the things that I consider it my job, as a Pilates teacher, to convey to the people I’m teaching, is how to avoid substituting moving with their spines for moving in their hips – yet there I was, incapable of avoiding that substitution, when asked to do an unfamiliar hip movement. This is the crux – do we, or does Pilates, do a good job of teaching people to effectively use their hip extensors when they’re not lying down?

It’s not as if there’s an absence of standing work in the studio (again, mat work is a different story), and maybe I just don’t teach enough of that repertoire – though there’s a lot more squatting and lunging involved in my classes than there used to be. Working from the basic premise that spinal articulation exercises are only to promote flexibility (thus facilitating stability), I wonder if we don’t tend to overemphasise articulating the spine, at the expense of efficient, powerful hip extension. You may argue that powerful hip extension (‘PHE’, from now on) isn’t a part of optimal posture, but I’m willing to bet that someone that has the facility for PHE has a reasonable alignment of their pelvis on the top of their legs. I was tempted to insert pictures at this stage, but it feels too objectifying. Suffice it to say that I was watching a promotional video (from a very well-known manufacturer of Pilates equipment) for a new piece of equipment. The model, who in fairness may not be a Pilates practitioner (though I know of a number of Pilates teachers whose shape is similar), had a pronounced angle at the front of her hips in standing, that speaks to me of lack of hip extensor activity – again, this feels like a common sight to me – generally more noticeable amongst women, but that may simply be down to clothing. In contrast, the elite female CrossFitters seem not to exhibit the same posture, but are ‘flatter’ through the front of their hips. Typical CrossFit movements: dead-lifting, squatting, kettle-bell swings, even gymnastic movements at speed like pull-ups and rope climbs, are dominated by PHE.

Could it be that we could help more people improve their hip function overall, and their posture specifically, by incorporating more standing (& lying) PHE?

For suggestions on how to achieve this (without doing CrossFit) please look out for a forthcoming project, that aims to help make Pilates easier, simpler, and possibly, dare I say it, more effective. Readers of this blog will be the first to know about it.

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Why do (I love) Crossfit?

December 11, 2012 — Leave a comment

One doesn’t have to search very long on the web to find critiques of CrossFit, there are many, and many of them valid. This seems to be largely down to the fact that it allows (fosters, perhaps) an obsession with the number of ‘reps’, or the time taken to do the workout, over practicing good technique. In essence, the idea of learning skills and then challenging one’s ability to remain skilful under duress is a really interesting idea. If you read any of the CrossFit training literature the same message is frequently repeated – form is everything. There is not an official edict that says “Finish the workout at all costs, never mind your technique”. Unfortunately, this point seems to have been missed by a number of certified coaches who fail to scale workouts appropriately for different people, and fail to teach the imperative of proper technique. CrossFit then earns a reputation for being dangerous, and causing injuries.

I will agree with anyone who suggests that becoming a certified CrossFit coach should be a little harder, but the arguments against Crossfit based on poor coaching are the same as the Daily Mail “How pilates can make your bad back worse..” type articles. Once you get passed the eyebrow-raising headline, the article essentially says ‘if you have a poor teacher, things may not work out too well’. As another blogger (whom I’m afraid I cannot credit, sorry) put it: “Crossfit is not dangerous. Bad coaching is dangerous. Poor movement is dangerous. Ego is dangerous.”

Enough about the problems with/for CrossFit (‘CF’ hereafter). This is about why I love it.

Maybe teaching Pilates for as long as I have (coming up to 10 years) had made me slightly jaded. The pressures of running a business during one of the longest recessions of my lifetime might have played a part too. Before I discovered CF I was still a firm believer in the possibilities of Pilates to work, something like magic, in transforming the lives of people with chronic pain, and other physical challenges, but I had fallen out of love with Pilates, a little. (That may also have something to do with my perception of the dominant trend away from building strength and fostering empowerment in UK Pilates teaching). In stumbling upon CF, and recognising their common threads, I’ve rediscovered my original zest for Pilates.

Aside from the philosophical similarities with Pilates that I referred to here, CF consistently teaches me about myself, in a way that no other discipline or type of exercise has. I’ve run marathons in the past, and done long training runs as part of the preparation, and I certainly found myself looking inward then. It’s probably true that I’ve suppressed some of the memories of what I may have seen. What I remember was the struggle to find a way to overcome physical fatigue, and some pain (and, to be fair, the stakes were high – nobody wants to train for 6 months to run a marathon, and then fail to finish). It also took a long time – both the activity, and the recovery. The soul-searching that I might do during a CF workout is different, and it’s a more humbling experience. On a number of occasions I’ve wanted to give up on finishing a workout, not because I was too physically tired to continue, but because my mind was telling me that I’d had enough. It was quite a surprise for me to discover that (with the motivation of, for instance, seeing my wife carry on when I wanted to stop) I’m capable of pushing myself beyond my previously perceived limits, which opens up a variety of new horizons.

There’s a camaraderie in doing CF workouts with others that I’ve never found in Pilates – perhaps because you’re more likely to be exploring the limits of your capacity. I’ve seen plenty of official marathon t-shirts with slogans that imply that being a marathon-finisher puts you in an elite group. Whilst the sentiment resonates with me, I also find it somewhat obnoxious. At the same time, there’s something about sharing the experience of a workout like Diane (Deadlift 225 lbs, Handstand push- ups, 21-15-9 reps, 3 rounds for time), especially doing it together, that forges connections. (CF is widely recognised for its community-building aspects).

Kristan Clever’s Diane at the 2012 CrossFit Games regionals

If you watched the video, there’s a clue to the humbling element of CF – not only is my ‘Diane-time’ about 10 times slower than the woman featured, it’s also slower than my wife’s (who of course has minimal interest in how long it took). It’s a curious feeling to set about something, believing myself to be bigger and, therefore, stronger, but to find that my wife is actually stronger than me. She’s a very accomplished Pilates teacher, and I admire her teaching a lot, but it doesn’t compare to the feeling of witnessing her steel herself, and push back the limits of her physical capability. For her too, more often than not, it seems that it is pushing past mental boundaries, that extends the physical ones. I’m finding it hard to adequately describe – there are moments at the end of a workout when, gasping for breath, I see deeper into myself than I have done during other physical pursuits. I wonder if it’s too much of a leap to suggest that it helps me make a connection to my primal self – the one that was born to run and hunt and struggle for survival…

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Your Health

December 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

I heard recently that the NHS in the UK spent £8.6 billion on prescription drugs last year. Four of the top five most prescribed drugs are used to treat ‘lifestyle diseases’ – cardiovascular disease, diabetes etc. More recently I heard a news item about a suggestion that patients needing treatment for those kinds of illnesses should have to pay toward their treatment, on the basis that their condition is self inflicted.

All arguments about the practicalities of implementing such a system aside, why does it seem that many of us are willing to accept that ill health is inevitable, and beyond our control? There are plenty of scholarly books/articles written on the subject of ‘civilisation’ being our downfall as a species. The further we get from our origins as a species, the more prone we become to physical degeneration. The very things that make our lives easier are the things that make us more prone to sickness. As Frank Forencich writes (in ‘Change Your Body, Change The World‘): “by engineering our environment to take care of our every physical need and desire, we have simultaneously disempowered ourselves and bought disease upon our bodies.” (It’s perhaps worth noting part of his solution: “..we need to find creative and interesting ways to make our lives harder, in some cases much harder.”) Have our disconnection from our origins, our comforts, and medical interventions allowed us to believe that ill-health is somehow a natural state?

Since I began writing this, a few weeks ago, I’ve heard a few more snippets of information that have fed my thoughts on this subject. I heard a trailer for a radio programme concerning research conducted on animals, to investigate treatments for Alzheimers, diabetes, and obesity – estimated to cost the UK tax payer £35 billion/year. Separately, listening to episode 160 of The Paleo Solution podcast, I learned why ‘low GI’ foods are a hindrance to losing body fat. (It’s obvious really, and I should have figured it out before – our bodies need our blood sugar level to drop below certain levels in order to trigger the release of fat as an energy source. If you eat food that will specifically elevate your blood sugar level over a prolonged period you will be inhibiting your bodies ability to mobilise fat for energy).

The trailer for the above radio programme described scientists using their experiments on mice to find “treatments” for these diseases. Treatments that perhaps might be more effective than recommending diabetics eat low GI foods, one hopes…. But why ‘treatments’? It feels like an acceptance of the inevitability of these diseases to set about developing drugs (procedures, perhaps?) to treat them. If we don’t accept that our bodies have built in obsolescence, or that it’s ‘natural’ to become sick (please don’t!), then there has to be an alternative. How about honestly facing up to what behaviours lead to these problems, and giving people advice and support to change these behaviours – maybe then we’d find that it’s all the ‘treatment’ that is required.

Maybe everything comes back to money. There are so many vested interests in making us believe that we do not have control over our own bodies, and health – All those industries: the media; pharmaceuticals; food; ‘health food’ & supplements; fitness etc. This all adds up to a potent mix of misinformation, and contradictory information, that may well leave most of us with our heads spinning, or the impetus to bury them in the sand. In terms of diet alone – ‘fat is bad for you’; ‘carbohydrate makes you fat’; ‘saturated fat is very bad for you’; ‘red meat causes cancer’; ‘sugar is bad for you’; ‘reduce calories to lose weight’; ‘everything in moderation’; ‘calories don’t matter’ – not to mention all the miracle healing foods: cranberries, goji berries, acai etc. If you face serious struggles with body composition there is a minefield of advice in the media, of questionable value. And then in the supermarket: ‘fat free’; ‘no added sugar’; ‘low GI’; ‘high in fibre’; ‘heart-healthy’; ‘wholegrain’; ‘one of your 5 a day’ (funny that fruit and vegetables never get labeled with nutrition information… If you’re buying a packaged food item that makes this claim, I’d be deeply suspicious of its nutritional value).

This could become a tedious list very easily, so I’ll try to change tack. In short, the barrage of advice and consumer pressure all seems to add to a collective sense that we are somehow programmed to malfunction, and that the answer is either pharmaceuticals, surgery, or buying the right food product. This isn’t helped by government advice, both in the UK and the US, perhaps the rest of the developed world too, that is patently unsuccessful. How many people are following that advice and becoming fatter, or sicker? The lack of declining obesity rates should answer that.

In pursuit of an overall project of owning responsibility for our own health, along with remaining physically active (as I imagine you all are) – Pilates; lifting weights; walking; running; climbing; jumping, and all of that good stuff, here’s a challenge for you (I’ve just decided it’s called the “Don’t Play With My Food” challenge):

For the next 7 days only eat food that has not been packaged in plastic, tins, polystyrene or cardboard boxes (glass is allowed, as are cardboard trays for fruit, eggs etc.). The beauty of this is that you won’t need to look at ingredients lists, or nutrition information – you’ll be eating real food that doesn’t require labelling. Please let me know how you get on via the comments…

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Pilates is a MOVEMENT discipline

October 29, 2012 — 5 Comments

The answer is “Yes”.
The question is one of my unfavourites, in a Pilates context – “What’s the breathing for (insert exercise name here)?” The answer is most definitely, “yes (you do need to breathe)”.
Of course, Breathing was one of Joseph Pilates’ fundamentals for his method. Attention to one’s breath can foster greater mind-body connection, and sense of ‘centre’ (presentness, if you will). And it’s also true that there may be a specific breathing pattern that will facilitate some movements, especially during the warm-up phase of a class. Equally, teaching someone ‘posterolateral costal breathing’ may encourage more mobility in their thoracic spine, and allow for greater control of lumbar spine stability. Undoubtedly valuable assets in Pilates, and life generally.
Not to mention that breath focus can be a powerful tool for relaxation. I like it if I’m having trouble sleeping – hopefully it’s a given that sleeping and a Pilates class are not complementary activities.
So, to clarify, I’m not trying to suggest that breathing should never be mentioned in a Pilates class. There are plenty of arguments for referring to it, especially in the early stages of a class.

My frustration arises when focus on breathing starts to hinder movement – because Pilates is fundamentally a movement discipline. I’ve seen many instances (back when I used to cue breathing patterns a lot) of people that were new to Pilates paralysed by confusion over when they’re ‘supposed’ to breathe. I’ve also seen teachers in training practicing what should be flowing movements, on the equipment, but stuck in space whilst they take the time to breathe in, so that they could then do the next part of the movement on an exhalation (because that’s how you’re ‘supposed’ to breathe…)

Again, I can think of good reasons for mentioning breathing during a Pilates class. When I first started teaching, cueing breathing was like a mantra that helped me remember the choreography of some exercises (Now I imagine that I can suggest a harmonious rhythm of movement and breath by the tone of my voice). Some people may need reminders to breathe in order not to grip and brace; other reasons I’ve mentioned above. All well and good in their place.

I’ve heard from teachers, who’ve trained with first generation teachers, that Pilates himself was only specific about breathing patterns with a couple of exercises, and otherwise simply wanted people to inhale and exhale fully. He surely wouldn’t have wanted anyone to focus on breathing to a particular prescription at the expense of enjoying the movement. If I try to rank the things that I believe are fundamental to Pilates, shortly after movement comes personal responsibility – and here’s my other beef with constant cueing of breathing: the more control the teacher assumes, the less their clients are likely to feel responsible for their own well-being. If the impression is created that particular movements have to be accompanied by particular breathing, will people be able to remain robust in situations that don’t allow time to consider when to breathe?

Photograph: Kerry Skarbakka/Barcroft Media

“Damn, should I land on an in-breath, or an out-breath?”

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Would Joseph Pilates do CrossFit?

October 11, 2012 — 8 Comments

Many different people have tried to find their own niche in the world of Pilates, fusing with, or adding elements of other disciplines; or perhaps trying to make their classes specific preparation for another sport, or activity. (Yes, I have seen ‘bikinilates’ advertised). I think this may be missing the point, but more of that later.
There are also signs that some teachers feel that Pilates is not enough in itself – that it needs to lead to something more – and I’d number myself amongst them. One of my teachers and trainers early in my Pilates career, James d’Silva, has created the Garuda Method, which was advertised at one stage along the lines of “where Pilates ends Garuda begins”. (One might debate the idea of Pilates ‘ending’ somewhere, I can imagine some sticklers for tradition and the original work rejecting the idea wholesale.) For me, CrossFit begins, not where Pilates ends, but overlapping, and happily coexisting. Perhaps this is the time to answer the ‘What is Crossfit?’ question.

The answer is: “Constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement.” (…”Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movements -i.e. they are multi-joint.”), from ‘Understanding CrossFit’ by Greg Glassman.

Greg Glassman is the creator of CrossFit and, like Joseph Pilates, a maverick figure with a solid conviction that what he is doing is valuable and should be disseminated as widely as possible. The strongest link that appears to me between the two disciplines is in the intended outcome. My understanding has always been (though I can’t find it in either of Pilates’ books, I’ve heard it from first generation teachers) that Pilates’ intention, after years of practicing a variety of different disciplines, was to create an exercise program that was non-specific. In other words, his exercises were for overall fitness, in readiness for whatever challenges life may bring. More recently the concept of GPP – general physical preparedness – has emerged, and this is central to CrossFit methodology. One trains a wide variety of activities in order to be prepared for as wide a variety of potential challenges as possible. Glassman seems to be fond of the idea of preparation, in as much as one can, for the “unknown and unknowable”.

I cannot think of a single Pilates exercise that works a joint or muscle in isolation, and the idea of a “wave of contraction from core to extremity” sounds exactly like Pilates. Joseph’s own principles for his method were: breathing; whole body movement; and whole body commitment. I haven’t come across anything in writings about CrossFit specifically related to breathing, but it is very much to do with whole body movement, and total commitment. In a divergence of the two methods, Pilates prescribed his exercises lying or sitting to “relieve your heart from undue strain” (from ‘Return to Life‘). This is one of the areas that leaves some of us feeling that Pilates alone is not enough, and CrossFit workouts certainly put significant strain on the cardiovascular system. (Whilst I think the tired “no pain, no gain” slogan is a crass one, I believe it’s true to say that you can’t have adaptation without stress.) In this context CrossFit also profoundly effects breathing, and full use of lung capacity. Anyone who has tried high intensity exercise will most likely be aware that breathing to full capacity doesn’t require cueing…

The video is self-explanatory, if you jump straight to 3:20 you’ll see how well her lungs are functioning. (In case anyone is concerned, the video above is of an elite athlete performing at an advanced level. This does not represent the kind of work that beginners would be asked to do.)

Many Pilates exercises involve maintaining a stable trunk (spine) whilst moving arms and/or legs. Typically the weight of the limbs and their movement act as a challenge to that stable trunk position. Similarly, one of the fundamentals of many CrossFit movements is ‘midline stabilisation’ – the idea that, particularly under load, you keep your trunk stiff, and move from your hip and shoulder joints. The only difference between the two is that Pilates doesn’t add load to the same degree. Had he been faced with current levels of osteoporosis, for instance, who’s to say that Joseph wouldn’t have favoured picking some weight up?

Another element that CrossFit and Pilates share is an emphasis on precision. Sadly, if you make only a cursory search of the internet, you will find plenty of alarm expressed over the dangerous nature of some CrossFit workouts – and, indeed, plenty of YouTube video clips of people doing very demanding movements with eye-wateringly poor form. Just like so many articles about Pilates being bad for you, I don’t believe that this is a reflection of CrossFit, but one of either poor coaching, or simply poor performance. Just as Pilates insisted on his exercises being done with precision, both videos of training seminars, and conversations with Crossfit luminaries make it clear that ‘Form is everything’. In fact, one of the particularly interesting challenges for me is that CrossFit workouts ask questions along the lines of: ‘We know that you can lift that heavy barbell off the floor with good form, now can you do that multiple times, quickly, with good form? And how about keeping your form and doing that when you’re gasping for breath because you’ve just been doing another challenging movement at speed?’

Rich Froning – ‘Fittest Man on Earth’

Joseph Pilates – tattooed health visionary

What else is there to lead me to the conclusion that Joseph Pilates would have embraced CrossFit? Followers of both methods will attest to the remarkable transformations in body composition, energy levels and overall well-being that are there for the taking. He didn’t seem to be interested in  great analysis of his method: one of my favourite Pilates quotes (as recounted by Ron Fletcher) is, in response to a question about the purpose of an exercise, “It’s for the body!”. CrossFit celebrates becoming faster, stronger, more agile – and does not dwell on the exact mix of muscles required. Perhaps most significantly Joseph, tattooed as he was, would have fit right in with a great number of CrossFitters, for whom ‘ink’ seems de rigeur.

I’m convinced that Joseph would have been involved in a movement like CrossFit, had he the chance. The truth is, while I couldn’t bring myself to give the post this heading, I believe (with apologies) that ‘CrossFit is the new Pilates’.

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What’s great about Pilates? Part 3

September 25, 2012 — 1 Comment

IT WORKS.

If you can maintain a ‘whole body’ approach, and avoid getting bogged down in complexities, but just get on and do it, Pilates really works!
An osteopath that used to work closely with a studio that I teach in would frequently refer his patients to the studio. Rather than giving them instructions for specific things to work on, he would advise them to “just do Pilates”. Presumably he knew that nothing extra was required.
I know, as a teacher, it’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae, or to become engrossed in trying to ‘fix’ a particular issue in a client. Of course, Pilates is a holistic practice. And the ‘edge’ that we may have over some medically trained practitioners is exactly that.

We could probably debate for ever how much Joseph really understood, on an anatomical or bio-mechanical level, about what he was doing. As I’ve asserted previously on this blog, whatever progress we think we’ve made since the 1940s, Pilates understood movement. This allowed him to devise a whole array of effective exercises, along with some foundation principles, that helped people to pattern good movement in their bodies. I think I tend to take this for granted, since my ‘Pilates miracle’ happened a good few years ago now. This miracle was going to a studio, at first once, and then twice a week, and working through a routine – not strictly the same exercises every time, but a consistent warm-up, and then trying to address my whole body whilst applying the fundamental principles (even before I knew that this was what I was doing).

Since then I’ve had plenty of opportunities to witness clients experiencing revelations about their own bodies, discovering that they can manage pain much more easily, increasing their range of movement and all the other things that we might expect from Pilates. More recently I’ve had a stronger reminder of Pilates’ elegant simplicity, in the transformation of one of my wife’s students. Perhaps one of the reasons that I noticed something particular in her case is that, while she has a history of various injuries, they were never the ‘object’ of her classes. When she started taking studio classes there was definitely room for improvement in how she stood, and the front of her body showed more muscle development than the back (We have shared a few laughs since at my early attempt to express, delicately, “your buttock should be more distinct from your thigh”).

Six months or so on, her transformation has been remarkable – the change in her posture is easy to see. Has she been following a particular program to address this; or having ‘new’ exercises invented for her? Not at all. What she has done is attend classes two or three times a week, been diligent about working on doing some mobility work on the joints that needed it, learning the exercises/movements that are especially appropriate or valuable for her, and getting on with doing Pilates.

And it’s been successful.  

If you can maintain a ‘whole body’ approach, and avoid getting bogged down in complexities, but just get on and do it, Pilates really works!

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Pilates for…living pain-free?

September 6, 2012 — 2 Comments

If that’s what we’re offering then we’re setting the bar too low.

Many people take up Pilates and find that it opens up new vistas of possibility that they never imagined. I’m very lucky in that, having started Pilates to address a lingering back problem, I discovered that I’m capable of physical accomplishments that I’d never imagined before I injured my back. Pilates meant that I stopped identifying myself as someone with a back problem; never have problems putting on my socks; never worry that an uneven pavement will send me into spasm; and don’t make stupid mistakes because I’m distracted by endless nagging pain (stupid mistakes, sure, just not ones I can blame on pain…) It also provided the doorway to me taking up yoga, having classes in circus skills, and weightlifting.

This good fortune informs my entire approach to Pilates, based around the idea (possibly expounded upon previously) that it is a means to doing other activities with greater ease. If I’m feeling glib I’m inclined to say that Pilates is for being better at living.

Pilates is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

One of the pleasures of my job is hearing clients report that, for instance, their golf swing has improved, or that running feels less of an effort, or that they can pick up their grandchildren without fear of injuring themselves. Hopefully they are opening their eyes to more and more possibilities.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who take up Pilates for one of the usual reasons – chronic back/neck/shoulder/hip/knee pain – and, finding that it helps, decide that Pilates is a miracle that they must keep in their lives forever, and do no other form of exercise. Anything other than Pilates (not being a miracle) might cause a relapse into the world of chronic pain. Being pain-free is clearly great, but is it enough? Is pain-free the same thing as thriving? Surely not. Pilates for taking control of one’s life – YES. Pilates for feeling indestructible – YES. Pilates for freedom – YES. Pilates for fear – NO. Pilates for dependency – NO.

I love the idea of an ‘ancestral’, or evolutionary template for living – are we made to be pain-free, or are we made to be amazing?

It’s impossible to force people to have aspirations, and I can’t pretend that I would ‘sack’ any client who’s not embracing all the possibilities that greater strength, control, body awareness, and so forth, may offer. If a client believes that they have hurt themselves doing a particular activity – running, tennis perhaps – I hope that they will be motivated to resume that same activity, and this is what I believe Pilates has to offer. I suspect that running relatively high mileage (combined with poor technique, awareness etc.) contributed to my back injury, but I still loved running. It was a liberating discovery that I could apply what I learned from Pilates to running, and not worry about my back at all. Fear, and the experience of chronic pain, can be hard things to overcome, and I would hope that Pilates could be integral to anyone returning to all/any activities feeling better and stronger than they had before injury. Again, we cannot force aspirations onto our clients, but perhaps we can play a part, by example ourselves, or with the example of others. Do we encourage anxiety by prohibiting particular movements, or activities? Or do we open the door (with appropriate scaling of exercises) to the possibility of more? A physiotherapist friend, Warrick McNeil, says: “There are no contraindications, there are just movements that you’re not ready for yet.” I love this attitude because it can be so liberating, and that’s one of the beauties of Pilates. One might argue that someone with a spondylolisthesis should never be doing high load back extensions – I’ve seen experienced Pilates practitioners with spondylolisthesis doing a full Swandive over the ladder barrel – because Pilates has given the strength, control, and confidence to manage such movements. (Experience says it’s necessary to spell things out: this was after years of Pilates, not weeks or months).

If you’re a teacher, will you encourage your clients to be satisfied with walking, instead of crawling; or will you show them that flying is possible?

The abridged version: Okay, Pilates has helped you to feel mastery of your body – now go out and do fun, energetic, perhaps even amazing, things.

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What’s great about Pilates? Part 2

August 28, 2012 — 9 Comments

As may have been previously mentioned: It’s really safe.

I’m slightly disappointed to be revisiting this subject quite so soon, yet a couple of tales that I’ve heard recently of people ‘being injured’ in Pilates classes finds me dragged back to the subject. Paraphrasing a quote I’d noted down in relation to writing on another subject: “Pilates is not dangerous. Poor teaching is dangerous; poor movement is dangerous; ego is dangerous.” I can’t answer for how many people are out in the world calling themselves Pilates teachers and making poor/irresponsible decisions that may put their clients at risk – yet I suspect (and hope) that there aren’t very many. (Teaching that is less than entirely effective is, I suspect, very much more likely than teaching that is dangerous).

Injury: physical damage, or hurt (according to my dictionary). In what context might one be injured? I’d suggest a number of ways, such as: mishandling equipment, or being caught in the way of someone else mishandling equipment; collision with, or assault, or even ‘adjustment’ by someone else; continuing with an activity that your body/brain is signalling you should stop; failing to understand, or follow instructions that are given to you.

I like to attend a weekly intermediate/advanced level yoga class. When I started I had only limited experience but I’d heard good things about the class, and the timing suited me. So the first thing that I did was tell the teacher about my yoga experience, and ask his permission to attend the class. If I try to do a full backbend, and push through something that doesn’t feel right, it’s entirely my responsibility. If I attempt a handstand without properly watching the demonstration because I think I already know it all, and then strain my shoulder, it’s inaccurate to say that  I’ve been injured in a yoga class, it’s my ego and poor practice that has caused the injury.

By the same token, to say “I injured myself in a Pilates class” carries with it the implication that Pilates was somehow responsible for the injury. Were you assaulted by the teacher? Did a classmate drop some equipment on you? Could it be more likely that your ego persuaded you to take on a movement that you weren’t ready for? Or that you did something (through lack of concentration, or poor understanding, or misplaced zeal) other than that which you were advised to do?

I think I may have written this previously – I don’t believe it’s possible to hurt yourself doing Pilates. It’s the not-doing-Pilates that carries a risk, especially if you’re in a Pilates class.

There are probably as many explanations for what Pilates teaches as there are teachers, or practitioners. One of my favourites is personal responsibility. In affecting the way that our clients relate to their own physical selves, I hope that we can teach them that their health is something that they are in charge of. There may be an array of medical professionals and therapists who can help us to manage our health, but in the end, only we are responsible for our own bodies.

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What’s great about Pilates? Part 1

August 20, 2012 — 2 Comments

It’s really safe.

No, honestly, it is really safe.

I’ve been regularly surprised by conversations with fellow Pilates teachers in which safety concerns over a variety of exercises have been raised. I made the “it’s really safe” assertion in a recent conversation with another teacher  who immediately baulked at the idea and suggested a number of exercises or positions that she felt might put a client in danger. Perhaps we need a caveat, or qualifying statement here –

If the client is taking responsibility for themselves, and if the teacher isn’t making reckless decisions, Pilates is really safe.

To paraphrase a recent Daily Mail article (‘Pilates can make your bad back worse’), Pilates may be bad for you if you have a poorly trained, or irresponsible teacher. No real surprises there – I can think of few physical endeavours in which that wouldn’t be the case.

In another Mail Online article (‘Beware the Pilates Pirates’) I read that: “Enthusiasts often injure their sacroiliac joint….The bottom lumbar vertebra is another common weak point.” Now, the main thrust of this article is, again, that anyone thinking of taking up Pilates would be smart to check on the teacher’s qualifications, which I’m all for. At the same time, there is a down-side that the seed of an idea may be planted that Pilates is something to be fearful of – never mind that I’ve been teaching for nearly a decade and am entirely unfamiliar with those supposedly frequent sacro-iliac injuries.

What can really restrict the potential benefits that practicing Pilates may bestow on people, is teachers reinforcing the idea that it’s a potentially dangerous activity. In much the same way that focusing on a client’s injury or weak point can serve to hold them back, giving clients the notion that they are unsafe seems highly likely to hold them back. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has told me that teacher X has told them that they shouldn’t move in a particular way, or do a particular exercise, for fear of hurting themselves. To labour the point with specifics, I’ve heard truly bizarre stories such as a whole room full of clients being warned against holding a soft ball between their knees during a shoulder bridge, for fear of knee dislocation.

Is there something about thorough training in how to deal with, or contraindications for, a wide array of injuries, conditions and ‘special populations’, that can make us fearful of moving our clients? This feels like a tricky argument to make, since not taking care is clearly not an appropriate course of action, and ignorance is still less desirable. Yet how many of our clients will, in the course of their daily lives, perform movements that look more complex/unstable/loading than most ‘safe’ Pilates repertoire?  I suspect that too much emphasis can easily be placed on what could go wrong whilst exercising, and then we risk embedding fear in our clients, thus holding them back. The result is, perhaps, that people challenge themselves more in their ‘normal’ activities than they do in class – in which case, how are we helping them? It’s a bit like not encouraging people to do high load (‘threshold’, if you prefer) exercises because they haven’t fully mastered the low load exercises they’ve been taught – it doesn’t help them to be stronger in a particularly applicable way.

I have comprehensive insurance as a Pilates teacher, with a maximum payout of £5000000, and it costs significantly less than £100 per year. What does this tell us? Pilates is a safe activity. One of Kelly Starrett‘s definitions of functional movement is that “You come out unharmed”. As Pilates teachers, what are we doing if not trying to teach functional movement? I find it very hard to believe that anyone injures themselves doing Pilates – if such a claim is made then I suspect that it’s closer to the truth that an injury occurred during a Pilates class, while the person was not doing Pilates but instead, some wonky imitation of it. Is this their teachers fault? If they allow their clients to endlessly do wonky imitations of Pilates without verbal and /or tactile cues, and explanation, yes; if the client has ignored/failed to hear advice against such poor movement then the responsibility for their body and any injury lies squarely with them.

I started writing this some time ago and things (Olympics, for example) got in the way of writing for a while. During a conversation with my wife last night (after she’d spent the day teacher training), I had a moment of clarity – one of those ideas that was lurking in the back of my mind and suddenly became crystallised: Moving is not dangerous, not moving most definitely is.

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What’s wrong with Pilates? Part 1

July 4, 2012 — 5 Comments

All that lying down.

The claims made for Pilates’ benefits are myriad – it is astonishing that it can, apparently, offer the wide array of outcomes that one can read about on the web. Before I give the wrong impression, let  me be very clear (again) that I’m an enthusiastic advocate of Pilates, and have both personal and professional experience of the remarkable changes it can help to make in many people’s lives.

One website I visited contends both that Pilates can help prevent osteoporosis, and that it will not stress joints. (Perhaps I’m wilfully misinterpreting, but surely stress is what promotes bone growth…?) This seems to relate directly to what, I would contend, is a flaw in Pilates (as it is often offered to the public). How much time do people spend lying down, both in mat and equipment classes ?

Revisiting some of those frequently listed benefits: How do we improve posture? We make muscles work more effectively (dare I say stronger?). How do we improve ‘core strength’? The same answer. How do we relieve back pain? Isn’t it the same answer? And helping prevent incontinence? Surely the same again. Of course there is a component of lengthening and releasing overworked muscles, and we can’t overlook working on breathing patterns, and developing physical awareness. All of these things are adaptations, and one of the most potent ways of triggering adaptation is stress, as expressed in the concept of hormesis. Explained as follows on www.innovitaresearch.org, a website offering information related to ageing:

“In response to stress, an organism is expected to go through three distinct phases: alarm reaction, resistance phase, and exhaustion phase. According this schema, the adaptability can be developed during the resistance period. This notion is in line with the evolutionary view on the survival for the fittest theory, for which the only possible way to attain the survivability is through the organism’s metabolic and defensive adaptation to deleterious stress.”

 There are excellent reasons to spend some time in a Pilates class with the participants lying on their backs – using the floor as feedback for developing postural awareness, safely introducing loading of the trunk stabilisers, and introducing loaded hip extension, for example. Occasionally I set out to teach a mat class without any lying down, but generally speaking any mat class I teach will involve a bit, for those reasons above, and a few others. At the same time, many mat classes seem to incorporate a lot of lying down, and I’ve come across many people who are regulars at a Pilates studio and in the habit of spending 45 minutes of a 75 minute class lying on their backs (maybe a foam roll too, for variety..), before then moving to the reformer to do more…lying on their backs.
The trouble with lying down is that it’s not a very useful position from the point of view of affecting adaptation, since we can’t do much in the way of stressing bones, muscles etc. If, for example, someone is quite kyphotic, or has protracted shoulders, they may be able to find a better position, with the help of gravity, whilst lying down. What happens when they stand up? If we are to help people understand and maintain good/ideal/optimal (or insert your own referred adjective) upright posture then we need to teach them in upright positions. Just as you’re unlikely to improve your running technique by practicing swimming, you’re unlikely to get better at sitting or standing upright by practicing lying down.
Similarly, whilst we can lay the foundation for trunk stability in a supine position, we can’t help people learn how to be robust to changing loads/forces on their trunk when they’re standing unless we teach exercises that involve them standing. We cannot help people to move efficiently (safely, with confidence etc.) against gravity in the outside world if we don’t incorporate standing or sitting work in Pilates classes.
If we accept that one of the primary goals of Pilates is to help our clients to become stronger (In the man’s own words: “To achieve the highest accomplishments within the scope of our capabilities in all walks of life we must constantly strive to acquire strong, healthy bodies and develop our minds to the limits of our ability.”) then we have to be helping those same clients to affect adaptation. And if we accept that adaptation is triggered by practice, or rather, that we become good at doing the things we practice a lot (see ‘The Talent Code‘ by Daniel Coyle) then we should be asking ‘How much do our clients need to practice lying down?‘ I hope that we can agree that the answer is ‘Not much.’
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