Katie Leaver Pilates

 Osteoporosis is a condition that lots of us recognise, but do we really know what it is?   It is a condition where your bones lose strength, this would not be noticed until you had a slip or a fall, you may not even know you have it.  However because the bones have lost some of their strength a simple accident could end up causing a bone fracture (break).  This condition impacts both females and  males.  How do the bones lose strength?  Your bone are just as alive and changing as your skin.  It is normal for us to shed some old skin as we grow new skin.  In our bones, old bone is absorbed by cells called osteoclasts and then new bone is built by cells called osteoblasts.  This process is know as bone remodeling and keeps our skeleton healthy.  As we travel through phases of our life the hormones that balance this cycle change.  As we get older some aspects of our bodies don't keep working as efficiently as they used to....

 This is the point where we take everything we have learned over the past 5 months and combine it together.  Breath: The fuel for your power house  Pilates key principles: Breathing Concentration: Connecting your mind and your body  Pilates key principles: Concentration Centre: Your core, connecting to it and letting it power your movement  Pilates key principles: Centre Control: Using the exact alignment, avoiding excess tension, isolating muscles  and  Pilates key principles: Control Precision: The exact way the action is executed.  Pilates key principles: Precision We then add Flow so that the movement can flow smoothly and gracefully.  Combining all these essential elements into my Pilates practice is something that I am still working on.  I'm not sure I will ever hit the perfection target.  It is really important that everyone knows that their best is good enough.  However Pilates is bigger than turning up and waving...

 Before I trained as a Pilates teacher I attended classes for years.  I was always trying to speed through exercises to get extra repetitions in and prove to myself that I was really strong.  However I was not really strong and I was not aware of the key Pilates principles.  Precision in movement is the exact manner that an action is executed.  When you are completing a Pilates exercise you are using your breath to power you movement, your concentration, your Centre, your control and finally your precision.   The greater the precision the more likely you are to find the muscles that should be exercised and then to achieve your goal.    When exercising I am thinking of the muscle that should be working, isolating it and being precises in my movement.  Precision can make the difference between accessing a muscle or not.  Next time you are in a class, slow down and connect with the muscle your working.  Use all the Pilates princip...

 In Pilates we aim to maintain a high level of control over the movements that we make.  As you will have completed some Pilates with me, you will be aware that a small angle change in leg positioning or increased stability through the pelvis can suddenly increase the intensity of an exercise.  When thinking about control it is very closely related to precision and you could say that these key principles come hand in hand.  You will find that control is improved once you have made multiple attempts at an exercise.  Muscles will increase in strength and your muscles will remember the movement of an exercise.  Therefore when taking part in a class, stay at a level where you can maintain control.   If you work at too high a level you will find it harder to master the control of position and movement and then perfect the exercise.  When we have control over a movement we are also able to make the movement using only the muscles connected with tha...

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...

 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 ...

 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 ...

 Adductors are more commonly known as you inner thigh muscles.  On my inner thigh I can describe the area as the meaty/squishy part of the leg on the inside of the thigh.  The adductor muscles are responsible for bringing you legs together.  Wherever you are right now, squeeze your legs together, as if you are trying to make yourself into a merperson and only have a single tail.  You should be able to feel the muscles of the inner thigh activate making this pulling together, squeezing motion.  The inner thigh is made of 5 large muscles, I have always thought it is strange for a part of my body that I don't really feel I use a lot to have so many muscles.  The muscles are called adductor longus, adductor brevis, adductor magnus, gracilis and pectineus.   The adductor muscles stabilize your pelvis whilst you to walk, run and jump.   They are generally really important for healthy movement and a pain free pelvis.  So why don't we ...

Have you been in a Pilates lesson and been told to " stabilize  you shoulder girdle"?  What does this really mean? Well the shoulder girdle or pectoral girdle is a verbal reference used to describe the bones of the shoulder.  The shoulder bones are amazing because  they support all sorts of movement in all directions in the shoulder and the arms. Yet the three bones are only connect to the main boney structure  of the body at one point, the top of the sternum (breast bone).   Your shoulder girdle on each side of the body consists of a:  clavicle - also know as the collar bone and you can feel this through your skin along the collar  of your shirt.  It is the clavicle that connects to the top of the sternum (breast bone). scapula - you may know this as the shoulder blade.  It is a triangular shaped bone that is often  visible  on the back of the body.  It is good to remember the at the scapula is free floating a...

 We all have two rotator cuffs which are very important to our shoulder operation, one inside each shoulder.  Your rotator cuff is made of four muscles that provide joint security (I love this term, a tiny little police force living in your shoulder making sure that the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint remains functioning).   Why does your shoulder need a police force?  Well the ball and socket joint of the shoulder is a bit rubbish (and also very good *).  It is not like a caravan and car ball and socket joint where you have a deep strong connection (a bit like the hip).  It is more like a scallop shell and a stick with a bulbus end. It fits ok, but really needs lots of tape and string to keep it together.  Your rotator cuff muscles are the police, the tape and the string that hold this amazing joint together.   The next part is only for reading if you are super interested in the names and actions of the muscles.  The four muscles of ...

In my last post I talked about the muscles of the back.  Today I want to talk a little more about the muscles you use and the benefits of rotation.  When we rotate we use some of the muscles of the back, including the multifidus and latissimus dorsi.  We also use some muscles from the side internal and external obliques and front, rectus abdominis. The rogation of the trunk uses both thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.    Now stand up and rotate (twist) to look behind you.  I bet your hips move and you are rotating from your ankles, your feet may even have swiveled a bit.  That is great, because that is how we move as humans.  Now find a cushion and a wall.  Fold you cushion in half and prop it behind your bottom so you are stood up straight and the cushion is held between your bottom and the wall. Rotate again, but this time do it without moving your hips.  We are looking to find a strong twisting feeling in the trunk, a bit like you ar...

Articulate your spine!  How many times have you been asked to do this in a Pilates lesson?  If you come to one of mine, probably lots.   The cue, "articulate your spine" is used in the large pelvic tilt exercise and is used to promote movement between each individual vertebra.  In a large pelvic tilt you start in the Pilates relaxation position.  Firstly you tilt your pelvis so that your lower back moves closer to your mat and your pubic bone rises (a small pelvic tilt).  Then leading from your pubic bone you peel your spine from the mat one vertebra at a time, until you reach a bridge position.  To come back down, I like to think I am trying to imprint my spine into sand.  So to make a really good spine print I have to get each vertebra to touch down individually finishing with my tail bone.  Naturally I am engaging my core throughout the whole exercise.  So what do we achieve by articulating our spines?  We have lots of muscl...

 Abdominal training is part of every movement in Pilates.  How many times do you hear your teacher ask you to engage your core?  ( What do I think about when engaging my core? ) Well your abdominals are a 1/4 of your core and are being used even when the majority of the exercise is elsewhere in your body.  If you missed  Your core muscles are like a tin can  take 5 mins and give it a read, I hope it will enlighten you. If you want to start from scratch having never trained before I would initially start practicing finding your core muscles.  Sit or lie down quietly and focus on engaging your core.  Then I would move onto an exercise like the bug.  Where you lay semi supine (on your back with knees raise to the ceiling, feet hip width apart on the floor and a neutral sine position) and glide opposite arm and leg away from your body whilst squeezing your core.  You could exhale and engage you core as you glide your arm and leg away and the...

  Abs are used to describe the front abdominal wall but this area of the body includes more muscles and other body structures than just your rectus abdominis.  There are three layers of muscle forming your abdominal wall.   The deep layer comprises of the transversus abdominis and the rectus abdominis.   Your transversus abdominis is a muscle that give you a big tummy hug.  It wraps all the way around you from your lower ribs to you pelvis across your middle (meeting at the linea alba (fibrous white structure that runs down the middle of the abdomen)) also attaching to the thoracolumbar fascia (a fibrous structure) in your back.  Your trans abs compress and support your abdominal contents.    The rectus abdominis is also in this deep layer of muscle, this muscles runs from the pubic bone to the sternum and if very well developed is responsible for the 8 abdominal muscles that can viewed on a bat man costume.  This muscle is respons...

 Glute medius  and glute minimus almost completes the opposite job of the glute maximus.  They are responsible for abduction of the hip (taking you leg out to the side of you body as if you were making a star shape), where the glute maximus is part of the muscle team the adducts the hip (taking the leg back towards the body).  The glute medius and glute minimus medially rotates the hip (rotating at the hip joint so that the leg moves in towards the body) whereas the glute max laterally rotates the hip (rotating at the hip joint so that the leg moves away from the body) Think about the clam exercise.  As the leg opens out and the hip rotates laterally the glute max is working.  However on the way back to the body the glute med and min are responsible.  Why does that exercise build so much?  Well you are using the glutes to open and close the leg.  Its important to keep the hip still so you get the work in both directions.  The glute mediu...

 Your glute maximus muscle is the biggest (largest and heaviest) muscle in your body.  It is the muscle you can feel if you tap your bottom. The two other glute muscles, glute medius and glute minimus are mainly sitting beneath the larger and most famous glute max.  The glute max is responsible for hip extension, this is when you leg stretches behind your body.  When you walk there is a small moment when you push off the toe of the behind leg.  This is your leg in hip extension.  Glute max is responsible for stepping up (climbing stairs), climbing, running and getting you up out of your chair or off the sofa.   Its a very important muscle to keep happy and moving freely.  Your glute max works closely with your hamstring (back of the thigh) to keep you standing up and to help you stand up again if you bend forwards towards your toes.  Unfortunately glute max can get out of shape or become inhibited (stop working as well due to something e...

 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...

 The short answer is yes!  In my first post I talked about the movement of hip flexion and listed the hip flexors.  We have already covered the iliopsoas the main flexor of the hip.  Today I am going to talk about the rectus femoris muscle which also assist with hip flexion.  The rectus femoris is the large muscles at the front of your upper thigh.  If you sit down with a tray on your lap, the tray would be resting on your rectus femoris. It is part of the quadriceps, four muscles on the front of the leg between the pelvis and the knee. Rectus femoris is the only quadricep that reaches over the hip joint as it originates on the front of the pelvis.   In class I often reference your ASIS ( A nterior S uperior I lliac S pine), you have two and they are the nobly bones you can feel through your skin at the front of your pelvis.  Well you also have two  AIIS ( A nterior I nferior I lliac S pine) this is another nobly part of the pelvic bon...

At home there are a number of ways to release tight hip flexors.  Think about the main hip flexor the Iliopsoas for a moment. It originates in the lumbar spine attaching to the vertebra at the bottom of your back, it then attaches to the inside of the pelvis (illiac crest the bony bit you feel at your waist) and then passes through the pelvis and connects to a nobly bit of the leg bone your can't feel at the top of your inner thigh (the lesser trochanter of the femur).  Its helped by some other muscles, but to keep it simple we are going to only think about the Iliopsoas.  Now think about being sat down,  The front of your body is scrunched up.  Your legs are brought closer to your lumbar spine (the bottom of your back) and the Iliopsoas is contracted or squashed in size.  Now think about being sat for 3 hours.  Upon standing up you might feel tightness along the front of your legs/pelvis.  This tightness is from you hip flexors.  Humans are ...

 For many years I attended group Pilates classes and was blissfully unaware of what my hip flexors were, what they do and why they are important.  However, I can guarantee that not a class went by without the great HIP FLEXOR being referenced by many different instructors.  If you don't know or are not sure, keep reading and I will explain.  Hip flexion is the movement the thigh makes when you raise it towards the body, just like my sporty friend is doing in the picture above. (She is also flexing at the knee joint).  You use hip flexion every day as you walk around, every time you lift your thigh towards you to take a step.  If you have spent a significant portion of your day sat down, you might feel tightness in the front of your pelvis or top of your thigh.  This could be your hip flexors where they have been stuck in flexion as you have been seated.  The main muscles responsible for this movement are Iliopsoas, (iliacas and psoas major togethe...