Over my years of working as a physiotherapist, pilates has been the one constant thing that has helped every person who has tried it. It can be used in all stages of rehab to help you recover from injury, but then to progress your strength and conditioning and finally to help you to perform at your best and achieve your goals.
Personally, pilates has had a profound impact on my own life and career. My hopes of playing professional AFL football were cut short through injury and I went from being a highly trained athlete to a sedentary person who was unable to run and too anxious to exercise. After three years of pain and what seemed like a never-ending cycle of flare ups and regression, my physio turned me onto pilates. I found the initial stages of my pilates journey therapeutic from the perspective of being able to tune into what my body was doing. I found the mindfulness of trying to understand my own movement and get back into control of my body really helped re-build my self-confidence. I was thrilled by how quickly I was able to re-train my body and get back to doing the things I love. This journey through injury gave me the inspiration to transition to physiotherapy after completing my Bachelor of Arts and continues to motivate me as a physiotherapist. Since working as a physio I have seen many people with stories similar to mine who have made the transition to pilates and never looked back.
Recently, I have turned some of my attention to the application of pilates to high level sport and to developing pilates based programs for improving sporting performance. Our Surf circuit class is an example of this, where we take the essence of pilates based core strengthening and correcting movement patterns and overlap them with dynamic strengthening and balance training to help people to surf at their best. I think this is really where pilates can benefit everyone from the highest level elite athletes to the everyday person who wants to exercise more and improve their quality of life. I would encourage everyone to step out of their comfort zone and try our performance pilates classes where you will be pushed to challenge your limits and allow yourself to achieve your goals.
