I am kind of obsessed with balance right now, so we’re continuing to work on it with asymmetric exercises and compound exercises that challenge our core strength. Three rounds.
1 arm clean and press | 30 |
rows | 20 |
1 leg squat | 10 |
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jacks | 30 |
lunge to curl | 20 |
skullcrushers | 10 |
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squat heel lift | 30 |
lateral raise | 20 |
brains | 10 |
The Amazing Stickie loves a sneaky core challenge that works her arms at the same time, so today she is doing truck drivers. She uses a weight plate because it is shaped like a steering wheel, but it is also all right to use a dumbbell held by the ends.
To begin, she stands in her usual fabulous posture holding the weight out at arms’ length in front of her at shoulder height with her hands on the left and right edges. She twists the weight so that her right hand is on top of it and her left hand is underneath it and then rapidly switches to left hand on top and right hand on the bottom. This is one rep. She likes sets of ten.
Today’s Pilates principle is spine articulation. Spines, as most of us are aware, are made up of a bunch of vertebrae, all of which interact with each other at multiple joints. In the thoracic spine (the part that connects with the rib cage), there are over 100 different joints, and that is just one segment. Joints are for movement. A joint that doesn’t move is not super useful. A joint that moves too much also has some issues.
In Pilates, we seek to get our spines to move appropriately at every joint. That means we want our spines to flex (bend forward), extend (bend back), side bend, and rotate. Different areas of the spine are better at different kinds of movement. For example, the cervical spine (that’s our neck) has a lot of rotation compared to our lumbar spine.
Our best function happens when our spines articulate relatively evenly across the segments. What does that mean? Among other things, we don’t want our lower back to do all the work.
One of my favorite ways to increase the articulation in my thoracic spine is by doing the supine arm twist. It’s extremely simple and takes about a minute. To do it, we lie down (yay!) on our backs with our knees bent and our feet flat on the floor. We put our arms up in the air over our chests, palms together. Keeping our elbows straight and the rest of our bodies still, we move our arms left and right (it is ok to let the shoulders move). We do about ten reps. Then we add head movement by doing about ten reps while gazing at our hands. Then we do about ten more reps moving our heads and arms in opposite directions. It’s simple, it feels good, and it helps with both posture and breathing. (For bonus points, put some yoga tune up balls in the space between the shoulder blades, one ball on either side of the spine. The exercise is a lot more… spicy… that way, but it really gets the kinks out!)
A spine that knows how to move and how to stabilize is a spine that will support us in all our activities.
Go play.
As a personal trainer and Pilates instructor, I have some suggestions for those of us who are looking for one or both of those folks. These are not rules, but things to consider when choosing someone to work with.
Is the person I am considering qualified? What experience does that person have? It is worth asking what certifications and specializations the person has. A personal trainer who primarily works with youth sports teams might not be the right choice for me, as a fifty-four-year-old non-team-sport player, for example, even if that person is technically qualified to train me. I need to know that the person I am working with will keep me safe.
What do I need? Some clients need tons of encouragement. Some need a person who is flexible around chronic conditions. Some just want someone to do the thinking bit so they can just show up and move. It can be challenging to be honest with ourselves—maybe we don’t want to admit that we want someone who isn’t bothered by our complaining through the entire workout, or that we need someone willing to suggest that maybe eating an entire cake is not conducive to meeting our fitness goals.
Where does this person work? Some people love working with a trainer in a crowded gym. Some want a trainer who will come to them. Some are happy with a Zoom trainer. Some want to meet in the park. Both client and trainer have to be happy with the situation in order to have a long and fruitful relationship.
How responsible is this person? It pains me to say this, but some trainers are more reliable than others. It can be worth it to check in with other clients to see if the trainer cancels a lot, or shows up late, or, worse, ghosts out on sessions. We all need grace from time to time, but a pattern of flakiness is no good for anyone.
Do I like the workouts? Do I like working with this person? This can be a bit of a challenge to figure out. It is one reason why I always, always offer the first workout with a new client for free. During that first workout, I have a chance to demonstrate what kind of trainer I am. I am a professional, and it never bothers me if someone doesn’t enjoy my style of training. Even if the first workout goes well and the person buys a package of sessions from me, I usually know who is going to continue after the paid sessions are over and who is going to seek other options. Do not stay with a trainer who does not meet your needs. Do not.
After working with someone for a while, it is also useful to ask one more question: do I like the results I’m getting? If we find that we are stronger or leaner or happier, awesome! If not, we may need to find someone else to work with, even if we personally like the current trainer.
Go play.
I’m still thinking a lot about balance, so we’re working asymmetrical and core exercises. Three rounds.
1 leg step ups | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
truck driver | 10 |
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squat to leg lift | 30 |
flies | 20 |
kickbacks | 10 |
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woodchoppers | 30 |
rows | 20 |
v sit press | 10 |
The Amazing Stickie loves to be efficient. So today she is working her whole body by doing the deadlift-to-curl. She begins standing with good posture holding some dumbbells. She chooses the weight based on what she can curl, not on her maximum deadlift weight. Then, keeping her chest lifted (slight thoracic extension, in technical terms), she hinges forward at the hips, letting the weights dangle at the end of her arms. She returns to her starting position, except that she bends her elbows so that the weights curl up toward her shoulders. She lowers them back to the actual starting position before doing the next rep. Sets of twenty are good.
Last week, I wrote about breathing as a principle of Pilates. Today, I’m adding a second principle: axial elongation and core control.
What the heck is axial elongation? Basically it is making sure that our spines are positioned optimally for good posture. Our spines are not intended to be rigidly straight. The neck portion of our spine curves forward slightly, the chest portion curves back slightly, and the lower back curves forward again slightly. This ideal shape tends to get distorted in real life by everything from structural abnormalities to plain poor usage. How many of us spend a lot of our lives hunched over desks? That messes with our axial elongation so we often end up with a posture that has our heads thrust forward and the whole rest of our spines curved around our bellies.
Pilates strives to help us get and maintain a better alignment because when we start from an optimal position, we have more freedom of movement and we can move more efficiently.
We get that axial elongation through, among other things, core control.
Core control is not, as some of us may think, simply holding in our tummies all the time. For one thing, the core musculature is not just in the front of the body! For another, all our muscles are strongest when they have the right amount of tension on them. Clenched muscles and totally slack muscles are both weak compared to muscles with the correct amount of tension.
The Pilates repertoire helps us learn how to keep our spines long and happy and our cores strong. People often report that they feel taller after a Pilates session.
