I’m going to try my best to present both sides of this argument - the business owner and the staff member. It’s important to acknowledge that both parties have different needs. The business owner mostly likely needs staff to help deliver sessions in order to maximize the use of the business premises and hopefully meet demand for sessions from their clientele. Most of the time, the staff member needs to work to derive income in order to live their life. Both parties generally work within our industry due to a love of the industry, and both can probably agree that it’s unlikely they see themselves incredibly financially wealthy, although hopefully it feeds the mind and spirit side of their needs. It’s also probably best to acknowledge that neither party is actively trying to take advantage of the other, even if it may feel that way - and yes, this feeling does go both ways.

Everyone talks about how good Pilates is for their posture. But what actually makes it good?

Before we can pull apart what makes Pilates good for posture, we first really need to understand what posture is. For the most part, when someone references their posture, they are meaning how upright their body is from a vertical perspective. There is this idea that is built in to us that we need to stand or sit up straight, as slouching is bad for us. And there is various bits of scientific evidence that leans towards supporting this claim. such as how much heavier our head becomes the further forward it sits of our midline (1), and various physiological impacts to blood flow and muscular dysfunction. However, the reality is that our posture is dynamic, and we aren’t meant to be holding any one particular position for any real length of time. Yes, some of our skeletal muscles are endurance based, meaning they are designed to support joints for long periods of time, but even those fatigue within a few minutes if contracted continuously. But what actually determines how long to hold muscles engaged for certain periods of time? That falls on our reflexes and our brain. And those are both fed by our sensory feedback loop (2) to ensure we know where we are in space at all times.

In 2016, I stumbled across a webinar series introducing new ways of assessing and working with the body, from the focal point of brain training rather than purely movement and corrective exercise. One of those presenters was Annette Verpilot, and she opened with a fantastically simple but powerful clarification on what posture is: the result of sensory input going to the Central Nervous System. Basically, everything between the feet and eyes provides information to the brain on what we feel, and how to move, at any given point in time. So there is a lot of information to be processed right? And when we think of treatment strategies for injuries or postural dysfunction, the modern day theory is to focus on muscle and joint mechanics.

Running was not always a thing for me. I was a pretty chunky child, and absolutely hated running! I would be playing rugby every week, but would get so upset at the coaches during the warm up as I couldn't understand why we had to run before the game started, and then run during it as well! Of course, that was because I was so unfit that even the warm up wiped me out, and eventually when I hit high school and got more serious about rugby, I moved past this (to my coaches' delight!). When I hit university, two shoulder reconstructions forced my early retirement out of rugby and steered me into doing a couple half-Ironman triathlons. Here I found that running actually went from being bearable, to quite enjoyable. So let me start to share some secrets on how I moved from a non-runner, to an avid promoter of recreational running.