Beth Kaplanek

The Secret to Working with Joint Replacements

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Polestar Faculty Beth Kaplanek RN, BSN, NCPT created an easily digestible 16-hour ONLINE course that is designed for Pilates Instructors and other medical professionals.  Learn more about when the next course is happening.

We sat down with Beth Kaplanek, for an intimate conversation about her book and upcoming course. Continue reading to meet Beth and discover why you should take this course if you are a Pilates Instructor or in the medical field.

Polestar:  Tell us about yourself Beth!

BK: I started my career in fitness in 1998, teaching aerobics and personal training. I also served for 20 years as a registered nurse working in various capacities in the emergency room, the operating room, the intensive care unit, drug counseling and rehabilitation, and hospice care. After years of teaching fitness, I became a Pilates Instructor because of my right hip replacement – possibly one of the first-ever instructors with a joint replacement. I think I can own that! Sixteen years later due to a bilateral hip condition, I ended up needing my second hip replacement and Pilates has been and continues to be the best way for me to move and live healthily all while keeping my flexibility, strength, range of motion and maintaining the integrity of the prosthesis. I was asking myself how I could share it with others to help them regain full function and have a positive movement experience.

Polestar: And you wrote a book and created a course with Polestar!  Can you tell us more about that? 

BK:  I wrote a book alongside two Orthopedic surgeons, Brett Levine MS, MD, and William L. Jaffe MD. The book is called Pilates for Hip and Knee Syndromes and Arthroplasties. The book presents the Pilates method and how it can be adopted for the needs of individuals with hip and knee pathologies and joint replacements. The book was written after Dr. Levine, Dr. Jaffe and I showcased preliminary research regarding Pilates as a form of post-operative rehabilitation for Knee and hip arthroplasties published in the Bulletin of the NYU for Joint Diseases and Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research.

Polestar:  That’s amazing! Can you share more about your course?

BK: It can be complicated material, but I break it down so that it can be easily digested and implemented into anyone’s practice.

“You have to hear it, see it, and apply it in order to learn it and use it!”

This course should be the next step for every instructor that has finished their core curriculum in Pilates. For those who take this course, I provide them with a 175+ page manual (it’s actually more like a book!) to reinforce everything that they learn during the course itself. I want Pilates instructors to think about how they can apply the course material in thinking about movement. The course guides you through working with people with pathologies and joint replacements. Over the two days, there are four movement labs. Every piece of the Pilates apparatus is utilized in creating a full-body movement program for the individual client. I send you home with an illustrated manual full of guidelines for movement and suggested movements for [that] pathology.

“The body is an amazing thing.”

The ultimate goal is to give a positive movement experience with no pain or discomfort. We as Pilates Instructors need to help to re-educate [the client’s] movement patterns and then build strength! The [Pilates] instructor has to be aware of pathologies and common problems that we see on a regular basis.

“…There is always something to learn!”

Pilates is an ideal form of low-impact movements that are easily adaptable
to the pre and post-rehabilitation and fitness needs of your clients with hip and knee pathologies and joint replacements.

Polestar: So very true. Thank you for that. If people have questions about this course or your book where should they contact you?

BK:  They can always visit my website www.bethkaplanek.com  or email me at beth@bethkaplanek.com . I also work at the Polestar Pilates Studio in Miami, Florida so you can stop in and say hi!

Beth Kaplanek is a practitioner of Pilates for Rehabilitation and Author of “Pilates for Hip and Knee Syndromes and Arthroplasties – Pilates Teacher’s Perspective of Lower Extremity Pathologies and Joint Replacements”

How To Keep Your Groove After Two Hip Replacements wit Pilates

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My hips needed some love.

I had osteoarthritis and my bones were wearing out from all of the movement that I did. Raising kids, being an early childhood educator, and my daily exercising, swimming, and walking, I have been very active.   I think all of this movement, plus my genetics wore out my hip joints! When you are able to move, and then you realize “I’m just not moving” someone needs to have a look.  My first experience doing Pilates was taking a couple of classes with my daughter at the Polestar Physical Therapy Center in Miami, Florida.  We thought “let’s try something new, a new way to exercise”.  Later I was invited to a Pilates teacher training at the center to participate as “a body” with student teachers who were practicing.  They led me in Pilates and assessed my skills, and between my two hip replacements, they did a fantastic job!  What I liked about Pilates is it’s all about me, it’s “me time”.  Even when there are 5 other people in the room my instructor says “you can make it heavier, lighter, or try alternate positions”.  I love that this helps me customize my movement and it keeps my joints lubricated. 

My New Motto: “Good to Go”

Before my hip replacements, I was an event planner at an elementary school. I remember as my hips were getting worse thinking, “please don’t give me a job where I have to walk across campus to the other building”.  After the first hip replacement, I was able to take long walks with my husband, bend, stoop, balance and move, and be with my grandson Zeb.  I could take trips with my sister without worrying about pain.  My motto became “good to go!” and I was thrilled to walk anywhere pain-free!  For both of my hip replacements, I received physical therapy at the hospital.  I loved moving with my PT and thought to myself “I bet she is a Polestar Pilates graduate” and not to my surprise she was.  We did movement on the elliptical machine, walked on the treadmill, and presses and lifts on the equipment.  Then I learned the clamshell, bridging with the ball, quadruped, and what I call the “donkey kick” – you push your leg up, up, up!

Pilates helps me keep everything moving!

Pilates helps me be with the people I love, other like-minded people at the studio, my husband, and my family. It helps me feel comfortable in my movement and helps me feel happy (it even helps in your romantic life) I Can Move!  Pilates is really a total self-care practice, for well-being, mental health, emotional health, and of course physical health.   My sense of well-being improves when I’m moving and I don’t feel like “the number 67” (my age). I feel younger in my body, mind, and heart.  Pilates is “me time”, I get to give myself the love and care that dominoes to the other people I love and care about.  Now I go to my neighborhood Pilates studio 2 or 3 times a week during the summer and fall.  

I have fully recovered from two hip replacements, I enjoy providing childcare for my 18-month-old grandson Zeb.  From picking him up and holding him, bending over, sitting on the floor with him, and playing in the tunnels. He even rides my back like a horse as I crawl around. I can enjoy bending over to change his diaper, walking him in the stroller, and playing with him at the park. We go to music class to play instruments, sing, and dance, and I love it all!  I think for a senior person, especially,  it really is all about moving.  If you lead a sedentary life and are not active, not with people you won’t feel great.  You just have to move!  Pilates gives me that opportunity to gently and effectively move and enjoy so many things like fully participating with the ones I love. 

Lyn Zuckerman is a retired early childhood educator living in Denver, Co.