Pilates key principles: Centre

In Pilates your Centre refers to the core of you body and the body's Centre of gravity. For anyone who may have forgotten what exactly makes up the core, please read Your core muscles are like a tin can. When thinking about the body's Centre of gravity. This is an imaginary point where the body's weight is equally balanced, and around this point the body may rotate freely. As we are all individually built, our Centre of gravity is unique to us.

You will find the the Centre of gravity for a man is slightly higher than for a woman. Lets think about completing the perfect roll down: Starting sat up, knees bent to ceiling, legs and feet hip width apart on the floor. You squeeze your core, roll your pubic bone towards the ceiling and your back pockets start to come closer to the mat. You place your back pockets, then your waist band, each of your ribs and finally your shoulders and head onto the mat in a controlled sequence, keeping your head in line with you torso. If your Centre of gravity is higher, (you may have very good muscle development in your arms and shoulders), you will be moving more weight, requiring a higher level of abdominal strength. Remember lack of success in a particular move may have more to with body type rather than lack of strength.

Finally it is important to remember that your Centre of gravity is dynamic (it moves around). Depending on your position your Centre of gravity will change.

In Pilates we are building your Centre to assist you in your everyday life. Improving posture and safeguarding vulnerable places like your spine.

Pilates key principles: Breathing

Pilates key principles: Concentration

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Pilates key principles: Concentration

In a world of attention grabbing, Pilates is a 55 minute window of calm. As a teacher of small group and solo Pilates I can tell if my clients are having a busy mind day. When the mind is elsewhere, movements are not as exact and clients ability to complete a challenging move is compromised. It is OK to have a busy mind, we are not robots, however letting go of your thoughts and concentrating on the movements your body is making will help your Pilate practice to develop. These are my top tips for concentration: 1) Be present, use the repetitive nature of the warm up to connect with every part of your body. Try to visualize each part of your body, be selfish and only focus on yourself. 2) Pay attention to the alignment of your body. The beautiful line from your toe, through your ankle, knee and then into your hip. Maintaining correct alignment will increase the difficulty of an exercise. Why not challenge yourself to completing level ...

Glutes, min, med and max. Which one is one is working?

Glutes, you have three glute muscles on each side of your body, which make up your bottom. The glute minimus, glute medius and the glute maximum. They do different jobs, so they need to be exercises in different ways. Closest to the skin is the glute maximus. If you press into the soft tissue of your bottom, you are pressing into your glute maximus. This huge muscles covers up most of the other two glute muscles. The glute maximus is the most powerful hip extensor muscles. This muscle is responsible for taking the thigh behind your body line. (Hip flexion the thigh raises towards your tummy, hip extension the thigh is behind the body line, this happens when the back foot pushes off the ground when we walk). The glute maximus also helps the body with the movement of hip adduction (stand on one leg and raise the other leg out the the side of your body up towards your hand/arm. Adduction is the movement of this leg back in towards...

Pilates key principles: Breathing

Breathing, or the way you breathe is an important part of the development of your Pilates practice. As a Pilates teacher I meet lots of clients, all at different stages of their Pilates journey. When your journey starts, your focus is on core activation and generally just getting through a lesson trying to understand and translate the instructions from your teacher into movement. Once your core strength begins to develop and all your concentration is not used up in surviving your Pilates class, it is time to start thinking about your breathing. In Pilates we use a technique called lateral breathing. When you take in a breath to power movement we ask that you breathe into your ribs raising your chest up and out. But why? To take a large breath in you can either breathe into your tummy, or breathe into your ribs expanding them up and out. It is very difficult (possibly impossible) to breathe into your tummy and engage your ...

Katie Leaver Pilates

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