Polestar Pilates

Technology & Health

In today’s fast paced world, technology is everywhere and serves as a major part of many peoples’ daily lives. Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, do these sound familiar? Of course they do. We want to introduce you to some lesser known technological gems that may very well help you in your health and wellness goals! We tried the following Apps and games which may help rather than hinder your health. By equipping your smart phone with these Apps you will have instant access to the benefits they provide, so no excuses this time! We challenge you to find a few spare minutes during the day to test out these resources for yourself. Give it a try and discover what works for you.

HeadSpace App – Meditation & Mindfulness HeadSpace.com – “Train your mind for a healthier happier Life.”

This pocket meditation app’s front man Andy Puddingcombe was ordained at a Tibetan monastery in the Indian Himalayas. With over half a million users, Headspace has one mission: to improve the health and happiness of the world. Headspace offers a free trial and subscription service to learn the essentials of meditation and mindfulness. The App offers hundreds of meditations for everything from stress reduction to sleep. We tried it! We liked the simplicity of the app. We found Andy’s guided meditations (and voice) to be peaceful, relaxing and clear. Headspace offers meditations of varying lengths which made it easy to find one that fit our schedule. We liked the App’s ability to document how much we meditate. Also the short meditations “Breathe,” “Unwind,” and “Restore” were fantastic 1 – 3 minute meditation resources for those of us with sometimes crazy schedules.

FitBit – Movement and Exercise www.fitbit.com – “Find Your Fit”

Have you heard someone ask if you are “counting your steps?” Fit Bit is a wearable technology device that tracks every part of your day – this includes activity, exercise, food, weight and sleep. The fit bit syncs with your phone and computer and comes in many colors and designs, so you can stay color coordinated. By simply increasing your steps per day you can burn more calories, increase muscle tone and increase cardiovascular health. The Fitbit app allows you to connect with friends and family to encourage and challenge fitness goals – it makes the process that much more fun! Fitbit was the first to introduce automatic, wireless syncing and offers the thinnest, lightest GPS + heart rate device on the shelf. We tried It! We liked the step counting feature which helped to inform how our steps varied from day to day and how it related to our overall feeling of well-being. We noticed that on the days we accumulated less steps we didn’t feel as good. Some days we would walk around the block just to get the count to our daily minimum and felt much better from the fresh air and sunshine. According to FitBit – the device helps you lose weight the healthy way. “We believe — and medical studies prove — that the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to simply keep track of the foods you eat. Gimmicky machines and fad diets don’t work, so we designed a free website and mobile apps that make calorie counting and food tracking easy.”

Pokemon Go – Game for Smart Phones PokemonGo.com – “Catch Pokémon in the Real World with Pokémon GO!”

Hand holding a phone with Pokemon Go open

Pokemon Go is an augmented reality (AR) mobile game for iOS and Android devices. The game uses GPS to locate, capture, battle, and train virtual creatures, called Pokémon, which appear as if they are in the player’s real-world location. This game encourages you to get outside and move as it’s the only way to play. This includes a healthy feature that is a step related game activity. You are rewarded in the game with extra points, prizes and stats the more steps you take as you walk with your phone. We tried It! We had fun testing out this game and it actually got us moving more! We felt more inclined to walk to lunch to increase our game related step rewards and found ourselves encouraging each other to stay outside just a little bit longer each day. We also found we were encouraging each other to go on walks outside of work to achieve small goals within the game. According to the PokemonGo blog https://gamerant.com/tag/pokemon-go/, one dedicated gamer utilized the game to help him lose over 85 pounds. Before adding weight lifting to his routine, the gamer found the initial encouragement to begin his weight loss journey and found inspiration to go outside and move because of the game.

My Fitness Pal – Nutrition and Exercise Tracking App Myfitnesspal.com – “Lose Weight with MyFitnessPal – The fastest, easiest to use calorie counter app”

The My Fitness Pal app is a diet and exercise journal app that allows you to track your daily movement (cardio, weight lifting, sports, and mind-body practices like Pilates and yoga) and food consumption. We tried it! We enjoyed being able to input our workout and see the daily calories shift according to our exercising and eating. We felt a new component of mindfulness growing in our eating habits as we practiced entering our food into the food journal. It gave us a second moment to check in with what we had consumed which allowed us to make future decisions in a more informed way. Now it’s your turn! Let us know what your favorite health technology is and send a few paragraphs to us here for a chance to be featured on our blog. Happy “teching”!

How Imagery Changes the Way We Move

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Written by Christi Idavoy – Polestar Educator and Polestar Pilates Biscayne Studio Owner “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything, what we think, we become.” – Buddha Recalling a happy moment in your life can bring feelings of joy, as reminiscing on a challenging period in your life can bring feelings of pain or suffering. You can smell something that makes you remember a moment, place or person from you past, while listening to music a song may bring back very intense memories! Through our senses we experience thoughts that provoke both emotional and physical feelings. At Polestar Pilates, we spend a lot of time observing what thought-provoking images we use while we help restore and improve movement. There are many schools of thought that have contributed to the field of imagery and what is called ‘Ideokinesis’. This form of somatic training was first conceived by Mabel Todd in the 1930s and it refers to the use of visual and tactile feedback that is meant to guide students, either during static postures or physical movements. Many have contributed to this body of work and along with the understanding of neuro-linguistic communication, we at Polestar have developed effective imagery and communication skills as a vehicle to improving movement. If you take a moment and reflect on how you and others physically react to feelings like fear and anger or happiness and love, it will not take long to notice that what we feel is directly reflected in how we hold ourselves physically. When we are afraid we tend to crouch down. When we feel rage we tend to feel a rise in our body temperature and an accelerated heart beat and breathing pattern. When in love we feel light and hold our heads up high. We can use this increased awareness when we are guiding others through movement, especially when we are helping restoring movement after pain or injury, to bring about a positive experience. The thoughts that we hold while we are moving or teaching will make all the difference in how the nervous system responds. It will also make us better able to communicate and find empathy with clients who are in pain or are having difficulty moving. As we become aware of how our emotions effect our posture and the functioning of our involuntary systems, like our respiratory and circulatory systems, we can really start to appreciate how important our choice of words are as movement teachers and healers. Visualizing the movement within the mind’s eye (either as movement within the body or in space), without any conscious muscular effort, primes neural pathways and reprograms unnecessary and unwanted muscular tension. We allow our body’s unconscious intelligence to pave the way for the desired movement. Brent Anderson often speaks about cueing the nervous system rather than the muscles, which makes complete sense when analyzing animals and children in nature, as the ancient yogis and our more contemporary Joseph Pilates did. When you go about your day, when a child plays in the park, when an animal hunts for its’ prey, it does not solicit conscience muscle activity in order to perform its activities. These activities in a natural environment occur unconsciously. With this understanding, if our training is to be ‘functional’ and prepare us for real-life activities, we should train in a way that mimics and promotes what we will need in order to safely and efficiently perform our tasks, namely healthy unconscious movement coordination. So how do we do this? We rely heavily on meaningful imagery cues!

Christi Idavoy at Pilates Anytime — Photo credit: Pilates Anytime

“Physical practice combined with mental practice can lead to more improvement in motor performance and strength than either physical or mental practice alone. Physical practice combined with mental practice can lead to more improvement in motor performance and strength than either physical or mental practice alone.” 1 If you regularly teach and take classes, and even if you tend to practice or work-out on your own, observe your thoughts and the feelings that arise and ask yourself if they are helping or hindering your performance. Keep a journal on your experience and notice your transformation!

Connecting to the Core: A Working Definition of Core Stability

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Written by: Lana Johnson, Sydney, Australia based POLESTAR mentor and Physiotherapist

I have had many interesting and valid questions of late from a variety of health professionals and patients, centered around the question of core stability and its role in Pilates and musculoskeletal rehabilitation. Many of them have been brought to light by Eyal Lederman’s article, ‘The Myth of Core Stability’ in The Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies.

I feel obliged to mention that my point of view is shaped by my various lenses; Physiotherapist, Pilates Instructor, ConnectTherapy Practitioner (formerly known as ISM Practitioner), dancer and human movement enthusiast! Given this blending of manual and movement therapy, as well as the intermingling of evidence based practice, it is little wonder at times that I feel stretched between different paradigms and constantly evolving evidence and beliefs.

I appreciate Dr Lederman’s work in shining the evidence-based torch on ‘Core Stability’. It helps to keep us as health professionals honest when making evidence based decisions for our patients and acts as a guide to highlight where the ‘Marketing Health Machine’ has extrapolated research findings for use in its own purpose. However catchy, his title, ‘The Myth of Core Stability’, does little to help clarify the inconsistencies of language and understanding which currently surround the manual and movement therapy worlds. I believe the only myth here, lies in our definition of the term “core stability”, rather than in the actual practice of it!

If you define core stability purely in terms of ‘strength’ and limit it to being region specific (ie trunk musculature only), then the myth of core stability is rampant. Tighten all of your ‘trunk’ muscles and notice how you feel and how your movement is. For most people it feels limiting and stiff. Any good movement therapist will tell you that the body works as an integrated whole and practising only chest lifts on the mat, or holding a plank for 5 minutes will not cure nor prevent back pain brought on by 1 hour of sitting!

If you however define core stability in terms of the whole organism (physical body, both peripheral and central as well as the mind) then there is no myth at all. Hundreds of manual and movement therapists understand that a well-constructed movement session helps a body recovering from injury or from poor movement strategies to regain options for movement both from a peripheral and central point of view. In fact what is happening in these sessions is not ‘core stability’ training as defined above but rather ‘integration’, whereby bodies are reminded how to ‘problem solve’ movement deficits through various central and peripheral paths.

Thus I think it is about time that we throw away the tarnished phrase ‘core stability’ and define a new term, like Polestar Pilates’ ‘Movement Integration.’ That helps build bridges between manual and movement therapists, aid communication and get back to improving the lives of our patients!

Learn more about Polestar Pilates Australia Here!

Follow Polestar Pilates on Instagram @polestarpilatesau

Akın Saatçi: Educator Highlight

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Testimonial from Polestar Turkiye Educator Akın Saatçi “I was on Turkey’s national rowing team for over 13 years. During that time, I won more than 100 medals all over the world: world cups, championships, etc. Of course by the end of my time on the team, I had plenty of injuries: shoulder, both knees, 11 disc problems in all levels of the spine. Doctors said that I needed surgery and that there was a risk of me not being able to do any sports again. This was indescribable for me as a young athlete. While attending Boston University and Bogazici University in Turkey, I studied management and marketing business in tourism, like all of my family. But after a year of work I realized that I wanted to do something with sports. By that time I had horrible, chronic pain in my knees, neck, and back. One day I pursued Pilates education. I had no desire to become a Pilates instructor: I wanted to be a personal trainer. However, I thought that if I opened a gym, I would want to offer Pilates as well, so even though I thought I would never do or teach Pilates, I knew I would need to know [Pilates] so I can better manage my studio and staff. In those 2 weeks, all of my pain went away and I fell in love with Pilates. After some time I opened my own Pilates studio. I still took Crossfit education and certification, and without any surgery I started to run full marathons. I became a comprehensive Pilates instructor from a good 450-hour Pilates school. But I wanted to do more and learn more. While I was talking with all of the well-known schools around the world, only Polestar replied with an interest in who I was. Even before participating in the course I felt welcome, valued and worthy. During the course and after it this feeling grew. Of course all Pilates schools value other people, but when I was in Polestar, even on the first day, I felt I was with my family; I felt like I was home. During the course, I also realized how little I knew about anatomy, teaching techniques, principles of Joseph, etc. I knew a lot of exercises, but now I know something deeper than that. Most of all what changed in my life with Polestar is that I realized how little I was doing for the world and for people. Yes, I teach Pilates in my studio, but what do I do for the people with no expectation of something in return? I found out that what Joseph expected from all movement professionals is to be beneficial to the world. Now I know what “impact the world through intelligent movement and lifestyle” means. We as Pilates lovers should impact the world, help people, and do good for the world, not just with our money or donations. We have to impact the world with our body, mind and spirit. “I am Polestar.” Follow Akin on Instagram (@akinsaatci_polestarpilates) and at Polestar Turkiye

Runners Knee: The Science Behind Injury and Prevention

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Runners Knee – Discover the science behind the injury and how to prevent and treat PFPS.

Many of our online followers have been asking us about patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS), more commonly known as runner’s knee. What is it? What exercises can prevent it? What exercises can treat it? With the abundance of conflicting information on the internet, finding answers to these questions can feel like a wild goose chase. We called on Juan Nieto, Polestar educator and co-founder/master trainer of Runity, to shed some light on the science behind runner’s knee and what you can do to prevent and treat it. Among runners, lower extremity injuries are very common– up to 79.3% of runners will experience these injuries, about half of which occur in the knee (Van Gent et al., 2007). Patellofemoral pain syndrome, also called anterior knee pain syndrome or runner’s knee, describes an overuse disorder that occurs in the patellofemoral region and results in pain behind or around the anterior knee. The causes of PFPS can vary widely due to the complex interactions between intrinsic anatomic and external training factors (Collado et al., 2010). In other words, runner’s knee describes the symptoms of a painful knee injury, not the cause of the injury. The cause is subjective and depends on the runner’s anatomy, strategy, and training. Searching the internet to find specific exercises for your runner’s knee will produce a mixed bag of results due to the subjective nature of the injury. Depending on whether your injury is associated with vastus medialis/vastus lateralis imbalance, hamstring tightness, or iliotibial tract tightness, the best exercises to treat it will vary. What can you do to prevent runner’s knee? According to Juan, there’s no standard set of exercises to prevent the injury since it depends on the person and their movement strategy. When choosing exercises, it’s important to pick exercises that bring relief and do not flare up pain. The only true method of prevention is to make sure that the tissue capacity of the runner is bigger than the workload. In other words, the runner has to be fit enough to run the distance they want to run and allow the appropriate resting periods in between to let the tissues recover. Additionally, technique retraining could reduce the amount of ground reaction forces that the runner is receiving, meaning they can run the same volume but reduce the workload for the tissues. If you already have runner’s knee, what can you do to treat it? Again, there’s no magic routine to treat the condition because causes vary. The best thing you can do is see a movement specialist who can conduct a proper assessment and use sound clinical reasoning to design an exercise plan, test it out, and modify it as necessary to settle on a final selection of exercises that create gradual, positive adaptation (strengthening) without irritation. If you have runner’s knee, it’s important to remember to avoid irritative exercises and to try to resist running too much too soon. Most importantly, KEEP MOVING! Movement heals and having positive movement experiences throughout the body will quicken the healing process for your injury. Want to learn more about efficient, pain-free running, try RUNITY

The Power of the Breath in Pilates

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When something is very natural it’s often compared to breathing; an implicit trust in an unconscious process. 17, 000 breaths a day is as natural as it comes. That’s why you’ll be surprised to know there are better breathing techniques than regular breath that Pilates encourages. We sat down with our Director of Curriculum, Shelly Power, to set the record straight on breathing for Pilates. There are many ways the breath is useful and integral to movement. Generally, how does proper breathing help Pilates? Proper breathing’ is such a funny expression – as if there are good and bad breathers. We joke that most ‘bad breathers’ are dead. Seriously though, the main thing to remember, is to breathe. Joseph Pilates is often quoted as saying ‘breathe in the air and out the air’. That is great advice. What Pilates brings is breath awareness and control. Students often ask me ‘what is the right way to breathe?’ ‘Should I be inhaling or exhaling?’ What I really want to say is, ‘yes’. At first breath, however, it’s most comfortable. As a teacher, I observe what comes natural and decide when I can use the breath in a different way to assist or challenge the student. Sometimes we use breathing to help the body move and sometimes we use it to help the body stay stable. And, sometimes we move to help us breathe. So, the breath really depends on what you want. There is a quote from Blandine Calais-Germain about spontaneity, “This, in some activities (even very complex ones) there may be a total lack of breath training because ‘only spontaneous breathing will harmonize well with the movement.’ Is there a certain “intensity of breath” across all Pilates movements? How might an instructor cue on the proper amount? In Polestar we like the intensity of the breath to match the intensity of the movement. You don’t breathe the same way walking as you do when you’re running. It’s the same in Pilates. Certain movements require a stronger breath, some require something softer. It often depends on what your desired outcome is. Is the current style of breathing making the movement better or is it getting in the way? If the student is distracted by too much focus on the breath, let it go and just let them breathe comfortably. Eventually, we should really be able to change the breathing patterns with ease. Dr. Larry Cahalin discussing improved breathing habits with Pilates Which Pilates exercises are closely related to breath control? The most well-known Pilates breathing exercise is The 100. It consists of breathing in for 5 counts, then out 5 counts 10 times, all the while maintaining the torso in a rolled up position with the legs outstretched. It’s a challenging exercise, to say the least. There are others but this is the one most everyone knows. Why is too much of a focus on breath a negative? Focusing on exactly when to inhale and exhale often gets in the way of the movement being performed. Especially when a student is new to Pilates. Having students breathe comfortably is sometimes a better approach at first, so as not to overwhelm them. Too much or little of anything isn’t great. Find a happy medium until the student can coordinate the movement and the breath. Can breath for Pilates be applied to other movement disciplines (high-intensity workouts/meditation)? Pilates movements help to create mobility throughout the body which is crucial for good and efficient air exchange. During high-intensity workouts, there is a lot of air that is exchanged. The better our ribs, spine, shoulder girdle and trunk muscles function, the easier it is to breathe. Conversely, resting breath should be efficient and should really just use the diaphragm, the primary muscle in breathing. No need to use a lot of other muscles. Can it improve daily functions around breath or movement? Absolutely. Practicing different styles of breathing can help to both improve mobility in the thorax and strengthen the muscles associated with breathing. If our torso is rigid, it makes it difficult to expand the ribs when inhaling and to narrow the ribs when exhaling. The latter is often associated with people who are obese, women who have just given birth, and in addition to the changes in the lung tissue, COPD. They often lack the mobility and strength to close the rib cage and squeeze the air out of the lungs. Many Pilates movements can assist in restoring better function What are the consequences of poor breathing habits? One of the biggest consequences of poor breathing habits is a lack of energy. The first goal of breathing is gas exchange – to rid the body and CO2 and take in O2. In addition to the physiological needs, we also improve posture with better breathing techniques and can change our mood or state with more energetic or quiet breath styles. Long, slow breaths can bring us toward a more calm state. This is often the goal of meditation and relaxation techniques. A more vigorous breath gives us energy and can make us more aware and alert. Breath should be natural and spontaneous. Shelly and Brent delve deeper into breath in their video on diaphragmatic breathing. It’s always good to take a step back and reevaluate the basics, even if you feel you mastered it centuries ago. Become Polestar trained and study with Senior Polestar Pilates educator Shelly Power at the upcoming Transition Intensive.Transition (Bridging) Pilates Teacher Training

HeadSpace App – Meditation & Mindfulness HeadSpace.com – “Train your mind for a healthier happier Life.”

FitBit – Movement and Exercise www.fitbit.com – “Find Your Fit”

Pokemon Go – Game for Smart Phones PokemonGo.com – “Catch Pokémon in the Real World with Pokémon GO!”

My Fitness Pal – Nutrition and Exercise Tracking App Myfitnesspal.com – “Lose Weight with MyFitnessPal – The fastest, easiest to use calorie counter app”

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Polestar Pilates

HeadSpace App – Meditation & Mindfulness HeadSpace.com – “Train your mind for a healthier happier Life.”

FitBit – Movement and Exercise www.fitbit.com – “Find Your Fit”

Pokemon Go – Game for Smart Phones PokemonGo.com – “Catch Pokémon in the Real World with Pokémon GO!”

My Fitness Pal – Nutrition and Exercise Tracking App Myfitnesspal.com – “Lose Weight with MyFitnessPal – The fastest, easiest to use calorie counter app”

Runners Knee – Discover the science behind the injury and how to prevent and treat PFPS.

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