Tag: pilates

Sitting Is Killing You?!

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Contentious statement huh. It’s certainly an interesting thought.

The clever people at http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/sitting-kills/ tell us that people are now sitting for an astonishing average of 9.3 hours a day! I find that fact amazing, I’m not sure I could sit for that long in one day, but then I’ve never been a fan of sitting still for long, ask my husband. He’s always telling me to “just come and sit down”.

So whats the problem with sitting….observational studies suggest that it is linked to obesity and heart disease. This is pretty obvious as being inactive is a known factor in these chronic diseases. The interesting idea from studies is that sitting still is the problem as it slows your metabolism down, so even those who exercise regularly but then sit still for long periods will have a slower metabolism and consequently gain weight.  So sitting needs to be interrupted with periods of activity.

 Part of the problem from a Pilates perspective is that sitting places your body in a position thats just not good for your alignment. The more time you spend sitting, the tighter your hamstrings become.  The tighter your hamstrings, the more they pull the lowest curve out of the spine and tuck the tailbone under. You get lower back pain…..sound familiar?! If so come and see me and we’ll find some exercises to help 🙂

The other issue is all the curves and bends in the body affect your blood flow. Your blood likes to flow freely in a straight line. Sitting in a bent position for a long period of time stops it from being able to do this. And…..you say…..well this leads to blood cells bumping into things and getting damaged, which leads to plaques building up obstructing blood vessels which links us back to heart disease. Ouch.

The answer…either have a standing workstation (lovely idea and great if it works for you but it isn’t going to work for most people) or break up your sitting with lots of activity breaks – make a drink, walk up some stairs, go and chat to someone instead of emailing them…you get the idea. Standing instantly makes your body work harder and puts you in a better alignment, especially if you’ve been to my Pilates sessions and have learnt how to stand 🙂

Fascinating stuff. It certainly means those hours of baby rocking and sling walking combined with my inability to sit still is all good. So all of you sat down reading this…STAND UP!

Pilates recommended by Osteoporosis experts.

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Osteoporosis International Journal has written a guide for health professional working in rehabilitation for patients with Osteoporosis. The techniques described are basically Pilates showing how spot on the Pilates technique really is.

There’s a summary of the journal advice here…http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/health/28backsb.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

It talks about avoiding stomach crunches/sit ups done in the way typically seen in gyms and other fitness classes, lots of repetitions, done at full speed where the back is jerked up off the floor putting pressure on the lower spine. The internal organs are pushed aside and the stomach compacted. Doing lots of repetitions means good technique is lost and the head is often pulled up by the arms. It is of course possible to do a good sit up but its not often seen in a gym/large class environment, in fact as an ex gym-bunny myself I can truly say I used to do sit ups all wrong! In Pilates a curl up would be done in a much slower, controlled way, lengthening the spine, peeling up off the mat bone by bone and replacing the same way. Only a few reps would be done as we look for quality and not quantity.

Other tips talk about maintaining good core strength when picking up objects and moving the body and maintaining a good posture. Again Pilates will help with this. I know that I am now so aware of my posture and the way I move that I tend to auto correct myself at points in the day. So if I bend to pick up the baby moving from my waist I tell myself off and practise doing it moving from the hips instead. Over time it becomes a habit. My shoulders used to be hunched up by my ears and after a while of working on that I now keep them pulled down properly (most of the time!).

So…not only is Pilates good for toning and building that all important core strength but the Pilates lifestyle is recommended for bone health. Fab news.

Pilates a good tonic for sleepless nights.

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This week I’ve had a teething baby which has meant little sleep and lots of energy exerted in looking after a grizzly one. You’d think with all of that teaching Pilates would seem like a chore. But not at all. Its totally revived and refreshed me.

And its not just me, I quote a lady from my post-natal class:

It seems that Pilates also cures headaches – feeling so much better now. Thank you Priya .

So if you’re feeling in need of a little pick me up Pilates could be the perfect tonic for you!

After another night of little sleep I’m looking forward to a Pilates and stretching session all of my own later on.

The Pilates time test

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It’s fair to say that I know most of my Monday night class quite well because they have been coming to my classes for some time. So that means I’m always on the lookout for new class ideas to stretch and enthuse them and am also able to try new things out with them, be a bit more experimental. This week at a request from a class participant we did a time test. I designed a class where the majority of the exercises could be measured in some way, so we looked things like the number of press ups that could be done and how long the plank could safely be held for. We worked though all the main muscle groups in the body rather than concentrating on the core alone including resistance bands to work the arms and deltoids. I’m hoping that when we repeat this in a few weeks we’ll see improvements.

The initial feedback from the class was how hard it was to time exercises and have an aim to hold things for a 60 seconds, it seemed to make people work harder. However I was also aware that people may push themselves a bit too hard and compromise on the quality of the move. In Pilates we like quality rather than quantity. At the very least this made a fun, different way to teach a class but hopefully it challenged the class and will encourage them in a few weeks when we redo some of the exercises and see improvements.

What others think about Post Natal Pilates.

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Below is a blogged post from a lovely mummy who attends Post natal Pilates…. Lucy you are awesome.

Since February I have been attending post natal pilates classes with this lovely lady.

There are 3 of us who regularly attend the classes, although this is about to increase to 7.We bring our babies with us and we can pop in and out of the class as and when our babies need a feed or a change. Sometime the babies come into the studio with us, and sometimes Priya’s husband becomes “Daddy day-care” and looks after them.

While Pilates alone won’t help me lose weight (only aerobic exercise and a healthy diet will do that) it does tone muscles. Pilates focuses on your core muscles, and I’ve found over time that my posture has really improved. I’m now standing taller and straighter. It’s also helping me to become aware of my body, posture and core muscles when I’m doing my other exercises, especially when I go for a run.
The other thing I love, is how invigorated and refreshed I feel afterwards. It really spurs me on and motivates me to exercise more.

But if I’m honest, what I love the most about these classes is the good company. As we are all mummies with similar aged babies, it’s great to exchange stories and share handy hints and tips while we work on toning up our post pregnancy tums!

Challenging yet fun.

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I so enjoyed teaching this evenings class. It’s great working with a bunch of people who I know well enough to be able to push that little bit further and who enjoy having a giggle together, but who also work hard. Tonight we tried a roll up with bent legs from the floor….this is where you start lying on your back with feet on the floor knees bent, feet  further away from you than a sit up position. You inhale and take your arms over your head then as you exhale you slowly curl your spine off the mat to end up in a seated position (Don’t try this unless you’ve been shown how please as my explanation is not a full one!). It ended up in giggles as I was the only one who could manage it, but its a good thing to work towards and I was pleased to see people realised they couldn’t do it as they knew their bodies limits rather than hauling themselves up without using their core muscles properly. I class that as a success 🙂

We also tried some preparation work for a roll over. A slightly crazy exercise that we will never attempt in its truest, fullest form, but the variation we did was a great challenge and add some spice to the class as well as working the triceps for us. The quote of the night for me was in response to my demo of the roll over….”You wouldn’t be able to do that with a flabby tummy as the flab would get in the way”. This certainly caused some amusement 🙂 Who says exercise has to be dull?

Prams, Pushing and Pilates.

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So having a baby can mean its harder to fit in time to exercise….however it’s usually possible to multi-task and exercise with the baby. Today myself and baby went for a buggy run, we managed 6km, running slightly slower than my usual pace but I worked out that this was probably due to the fact I wasn’t able to use my arms to help propel myself forward as I had to push the buggy. It was certainly harder work as well, which made it all the more of a challenge for  me and appealed to my competitive streak! Baby enjoyed it immensely sleeping the whole time. At the end of my run I used the buggy as an aid and squeezed in some lunges, squats and then laying on the grass enjoyed a little bit of pilates! I’m not sure what all the passers by thought but I certainly enjoyed exercising in the outdoors and got a great workout. I hope you’ve managed to squeeze in your exercise today….

Changes to Classes

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Just to let you all know if you haven’t been at a class lately….I’m now 35 weeks pregnant and plan to continue teaching as long as possible, I’ll let you know when I have to stop! If you haven’t been for a while then please do drop in and take a class, we have now moved onto some different exercises and are having a lot of fun with some of them! All classes are mixed ability so if you have only done a few classes or lots it will suit you all. I’m adding some exercises to my website week by week so you can try then at home in between classes.

I have to make a few changes to classes over the next few weeks, I hope they will suit you all. For the next 2 weeks (18th and 25th October) I can’t get to the class until 6.45pm, so Lucy will be leading you in a warm up. I shall come to do the actual Pilates section of the class. By now you should all have a good idea of what you need to do to warm yourselves up I hope, Lucy will be there to remind you and I shall be giving her something to follow (she currently does one to one Pilates with me). I hope this will be ok with you all.

In November I have to change the class time, we shall be starting at 6.45pm. Please let me know if this doesn’t work for you. I know some of you have asked for a slightly later class so this may even work better for some of you.