You go for a run and notice a small amount of urine leakage. Perhaps it only happens during sprints. Or skipping. Or box jumps. Maybe you are completely fine through most of your Pilates class but leak when the class includes repeated jumping. Exercise-related urinary leakage is common, but assessment can help identify the factors contributing to your symptoms. For some women, it begins during pregnancy or after having a baby. For others, it appears years later. Some first no

“Go lower.” “Full range.” “Deeper is better.” “Don’t let the knee bend that far.” “Keep it small.” Pilates instructors receive a lot of conflicting advice about exercise range of motion. A larger range changes joint position and mechanical demand, but deeper is not automatically better. Some are taught that full range is always superior. Others are taught that particular joint angles are dangerous. Then rehabilitation introduces partial ranges. Strength training introduces d

A client is shaking. Their muscles are burning. They tell you, “I can really feel that.” The exercise looks difficult. So it must be strengthening them, right? Not necessarily. An exercise can feel difficult without necessarily providing a high strength stimulus. This is one of the most important distinctions Pilates instructors need to understand. An exercise can feel extremely difficult without providing a particularly strong strength stimulus. An exercise can create an eno

You start a plank and your abdominal muscles feel completely fine. Your shoulders are working, your legs are strong enough to hold the position, and you could probably continue for another 30 seconds. Except your wrists are already uncomfortable. The same thing might happen in four-point kneeling, push-ups, Pilates exercises on the Reformer or any position where you need to support your body weight through your hands. Planks require the wrist to tolerate both extension and bo

You go for a run and notice a small amount of urine leakage. Perhaps it only happens during sprints. Or skipping. Or box jumps. Maybe you are completely fine through most of your Pilates class but leak when the class includes repeated jumping. Exercise-related urinary leakage is common, but assessment can help identify the factors contributing to your symptoms. For some women, it begins during pregnancy or after having a baby. For others, it appears years later. Some first no

“Go lower.” “Full range.” “Deeper is better.” “Don't let the knee bend that far.” “Keep it small.” Pilates instructors receive a lot of conflicting advice about exercise range of motion. A larger range changes joint position and mechanical demand, but deeper is not automatically better. Some are taught that full range is always superior. Others are taught that particular joint angles are dangerous. Then rehabilitation introduces partial ranges. Strength training introduces de

A client is shaking. Their muscles are burning. They tell you, “I can really feel that.” The exercise looks difficult. So it must be strengthening them, right? Not necessarily. This is one of the most important distinctions Pilates instructors need to understand. An exercise can feel extremely difficult without providing a particularly strong strength stimulus. An exercise can feel difficult without necessarily providing a high strength stimulus. An exercise can create an eno

You start a plank and your abdominal muscles feel completely fine. Planks require the wrist to tolerate both extension and body weight. Your shoulders are working, your legs are strong enough to hold the position, and you could probably continue for another 30 seconds. Except your wrists are already uncomfortable. The same thing might happen in four-point kneeling, push-ups, Pilates exercises on the Reformer or any position where you need to support your body weight through y

Take a squat. Put it on one leg. Add a foam pad. Hold a ball. Close one eye. Add rotation. Now put it on a moving Reformer carriage. Is it better balance training? Or have we just made the exercise increasingly difficult to perform? Pilates instructors are exceptionally good at creating instability. We have moving carriages, springs, boxes, balls, unstable surfaces and endless opportunities to reduce someone's base of support. And because the exercise becomes harder, it is ea

“I just have weak ankles.” It is something we hear surprisingly often from people who have rolled the same ankle repeatedly. Perhaps the first injury happened years ago during sport. The ankle swelled, you rested it for a few days, eventually you could walk normally again and you assumed it had healed. Then you rolled it again. And again. Now an uneven footpath, a quick change of direction or stepping awkwardly off a curb can make the ankle feel unreliable. Recurrent ankle sp

“Keep your pelvis completely still.” “Lock your ribs down.” “Don't let your knee move.” “Pull your shoulder blades down and back.” “Stabilise your core.” If you teach Pilates, you have probably used some version of these cues. The intention is usually good. We want clients to move with control. We want them to manage load appropriately. We want to reduce unnecessary movement when the goal of an exercise requires a particular body region to remain relatively controlled. But so

You can walk around relatively comfortably. Going up the stairs might be completely manageable. But as soon as you turn around and start walking down, your knee hurts. Perhaps you feel an ache around or behind the kneecap. Maybe the first few stairs are fine, but the discomfort builds as you continue. You might find yourself turning slightly sideways, holding onto the railing or putting more weight through the opposite leg. It can feel strange that the same knee can tolerate

A client is halfway through a standing Reformer lunge when they tell you their knee feels uncomfortable. What do you do? Do you tell them to stop immediately? Reduce the spring resistance? Shorten the range? Offer them something to hold onto? Ask them to keep going because a little discomfort is normal during exercise? The answer depends on what the client is experiencing, why they are performing the exercise and what happens when you change the demand. Knowing when to conti

You wake up, swing your legs out of bed and place your feet on the floor. Then comes that familiar pain underneath your heel. The first few steps are uncomfortable. You might find yourself limping towards the bathroom or walking on your toes to avoid putting pressure through the painful area. After a few minutes of moving around, the pain starts to settle. By the time you have made your coffee and started your day, your foot might feel relatively normal. Then you sit down for

You finally get into bed after a long day, roll onto your favourite side and almost immediately feel an ache on the outside of your hip. You try adjusting your position, moving your leg or rolling onto the other side. Sometimes that helps. Other nights, you find yourself constantly changing positions because neither hip feels particularly comfortable. Perhaps the pain is not limited to bedtime. You might notice it when walking uphill, climbing stairs, standing on one leg to p

You have probably heard the terms concentric, eccentric and isometric hundreds of times throughout your Pilates education. You may know that concentric means a muscle shortens, eccentric means a muscle lengthens and isometric means a muscle maintains its length. But knowing those definitions is very different from being able to apply them when teaching. Take a simple Reformer footwork exercise. Understanding muscle contractions helps Pilates instructors recognise how exercise

“I can’t feel my glutes.” Pilates instructors hear this constantly. The client is doing bridges, side-lying leg work, scooter, lunges or squats. You have cued the pelvis. Changed the foot position. Asked them to squeeze harder. Told them to imagine pushing the floor away. They still say: “I just can’t feel it.” At that point, many instructors assume the muscle is not activating. But “not feeling” a muscle does not necessarily mean it is not working. Likewise, a strong burning

For years, women have been told that the answer to staying fit through their 40s, 50s and beyond is to eat less and do more cardio. Feeling a muscle and effectively training it are not always the same thing. Load, joint position and exercise mechanics all influence muscular demand. Walk more. Run more. Do another high-intensity class. Choose lighter weights. Keep moving, but don't lift too heavy. Then perimenopause or menopause arrives and suddenly the things that used to wor

A Pilates class can contain excellent exercises and still be poorly programmed. The issue is not always what you taught. Sometimes it is when you taught it. Exercise order changes the training stimulus. It changes: fatigue force production technique motor learning balance coordination muscular recruitment perceived difficulty how much capacity is left for the exercises that come later And yet exercise sequencing in Pilates is often discussed almost entirely from a flow perspe

You wake up and your neck feels relatively fine. You get through breakfast without thinking about it. Then the workday starts. A few hours at the computer. Some time looking down at your phone. A meeting. More emails. Maybe a drive home. By late afternoon, you notice that familiar ache creeping into your neck and shoulders. Your upper traps feel tight. You want to stretch your neck. You find yourself rolling your shoulders, rubbing the base of your skull or trying to sit up s