Choosing a suitable Pilates Studio

A reader has set her mind to learn pilates from professional studio, and asked how to choose a suitable one.

I personally feel that most of the fully-equipped studios have 2 major differences, which is, their studio ambience and their instructors' teaching style.

Ambience, well, mainly depends on the layout of equipments and mat area, the lighting, background music etc., which should make you feel (if not like home), at least, at ease when you step in.

Teaching style is a little trickier, and it depends on 2 things:
1. Instructor's personality - Fun/ serious/ slave driver or soft mommy-style, you get what I mean
2. Schools/ certifications of pilates where the instructors receive their training.

Some schools teach classical pilates, which meant to teach the principle, teaching method and exercise repertoires originally developed by Joseph Pilates himself; on the other hand, other schools teach "evolved" pilates. Evolved pilates add findings from modern sport and movement science research into classical pilates, while removing or modifying some of the exercises that may deemed otherwise too tough (or "Gang-ko" in hokkien) for the general population.

I would say it is best to keep an open mind and try out the studio that is most convenient for you. If it doesn't have the "X-factors" to make you feel right, try another one, and soon you will find the studio environment and instructor that suit you best!

My Sports Bra Gives me Neck Ache!

It's a shame that, though I practive Pilates regularly, I suffered from bad neck aches.

Sometimes my neck ached so bad that I felt like the whole world was crumbling down my head.

Pilates had already given me a lot of pain relief. So you can imagine how bad it had been.

I changed my mattress, got myself a new memory foam pillow. I am careful with my posture, I have strong back muscles and I stretch regularly. I didn't know what's causing the ache and I even suspected something was wrong with the Feng Shui of my room, so I painted the walls a new colour and shuffled furniture into new layout. But why didn't the neck ache go away?

One weekend I was all alone at home working at my laptop and my neck started to ache badly. I wanted to rub the ache off my neck, so I reached for the massage oil. But the moment I took off my sports bra to make way for the massage, the pain immediately reduced 80%! Only then I realised, gosh, my favourite sports bra was the culprit!

I have been wearing this sports bra for years. I liked it a lot because it gave me very good support (maybe too good support) for my run. Apparently my body had changed over the years and my upper body had grown bigger, meaning the sports bra became tighter. The shoulder straps of the bra acted like super shortened upper trapezius muscles and bound my shoulders and neck uptight. That was what made my neck ached! No wonder all my stretches didn't work.

Besides neck ache, wrong bra size can also cause backache, shoulder pain, tender bust and bad posture. It is not a matter that ladies should take casually.

If you do have neckache (and bra size is not the main culprit), try the following:
1. Isometric exercises

• clasp hands together behind head and press head firmly against hands for five seconds, then relax pressure
• bend head forward and apply gentle pressure with hands for ten seconds, relax pressure once again
• repeat five more times or as needed.
  
• Do not force head too far forward and stop if any pain is felt.

2. Stretching

• bend head to right and hold for ten seconds, then roll gently, head forward, then to left.
• shrug shoulders, hold for a few seconds and then release.
  
• Repeat if needed.
  
• Go slowly and don't force head to shoulders, only go as comfortably as you feel.
  

Anyway, I found this video pretty cool, it gives a short and sweet overview on neckache and pain relief good exercises:

Pilates: How To Prevent And Relieve Neck Ache

Pelvic Floor - on incontinence & sexual health

You might have heard of the term "pelvic floor" during one of your pilates classes, do you know what exactly is it?

Pelvic floor is a group of muscles that stretch like a hammock from the tail bone at the back to the pubic bone in front. It supports the bladder, the womb and the bowel. The urethra, the vagina and the rectum pass through them. It's important to build and maintain strength in the pelvic floor, as it play important role in bladder and bowel control, and sexual sensation (for both male and female).

The easiest way to find your pelvic floor muscles is to pretend to stop the flow of urine, you will feel a slight lifting up of the muscles underneath your pelvis. Another way to find your pelvic floor muscles is to suck your thumb. Bizarre but true!

Though problems relating to weak pelvic floor are more common in ladies, the men are not spared. Because beside pregnancy, childbirth (whether delivered naturally or by Caeserian) and menopause (hormones at work again!), pelvic floor can also be weakened by obesity, excessive weight lifting, constipation (that you have to strain to empty your bowel), and even chronic cough (smoker's alert!).

Besides the famous Kegel exercise, pilates can also help strengthen the pelvic floor. Although the term 'pelvic floor' was not used, the concept was part of the original pilates system. If you pull in your powerhouse and engage your deep trasverse abdominus, then your pelvic floor muscles engage. Next time when you do pilates, try to think of these muscles contracting as part of the girdle of strength.

So pilates can help improve your sex life (of course prevent incontinence too)! Yet another great benefit of pilates that you can add on to the list.

Take a Break, for the better

There were loads of distraction happening end of last year that had quite disrupted my focus on Pilates. I stopped training myself, cut down teaching and also paused P-latte blogging. I was such a bad bad bad girl...

During this period of time I had a well deserved break when I went back HK for a big family reunion. So now I feel recharged and I have so much to blog about. I believe that it is important to have a break as and when needed, no matter what you are dealing with. In fact one of the most important diet tip I gave to my friends and clients who wanted to lose weight was to take a break from their strict diet, and

"eat your favourite chocolate cake or indulge in something sinful, once a week."

Of course after the indulgence you have to work a bit harder to take those calories off. Some dieters are totally put off by this idea. But most often than not, these are also the dieters who would fail to achieve their diet goals. Many of them are so angry with themselves when they eventually succumb to temptation that they gave up dieting altogether, thinking that they are not fated to succeed in their weight-loss program.

The real logic is, it is easier to stay away from a piece of yummy cheese cake continuously over just a week, than to stay "deprived" over an extended period of time. It is like a marathon runner "strategies" his race by setting various milestones (say every 5km), then conquering them one at a time, before finally crossing the finishing line at the 42km mark. It is really a tough mental game to stay away from tons of diet temptation in our modern living, it's probably wise to recharge your mental power once a week by rewarding yourself with few pieces of beautiful chocolate praline, so that you can win the lifelong challenge of smart-eating.

This is my diet strategy, what's yours?