Should you keep your shoulders down when raising the arms overhead?

Careful, this might be a trick question.

Your initial respone might have been. Yeah, duh! Of course! Shoulders should never by up by your ears.

Weeeeeellllllll........

Overhead arm movement might be a bit more complicated than...

A ghost is what we call a small square of shelf liner that can be used to create more space in the wrist when weight bearing on equipment and also on the mat.

Alternatively on the mat you can use wedges.

When I first began building upper body strength I practiced all weight bearing exercises, such as plank, leg pull, push ups etc. with the wedge. Now that my arms and shoulders are strong enough, they hold my body weight up and there is less weight and pressure on my wrists. I don’t...

Pilates is all about control, don’t we know it.

In this video, I’ll talk about how co-contraction of agonist and antagonist around a joint makes your movement fluid and your joints stable.

Often we focus on the first part of the exercise, pulling on the bar or the strap, and then we...

"Pull the shoulders away from the ears." 

I bet that was a good reminder for you, wasn't it? Most of us carry our shoulders as earrings. Yep guys, you too!

But if we think of the same cue over and over and over, we tend to shoot beyond the perfect position, and start overdoing it. Too much...

Many people new to Pilates know that this method strengthens their core. They often don’t realize that Pilates looks at every body part from every direction. Pilates teachers often find it frustrating, that the method gets reduced to “just” core, when it can do so much more....

I have honestly stopped teaching the full Swimming exercise in my beginner mat classes. Too many students have limited shoulder flexion (they can’t lift their arms overhead without creating some sort of disorganization in the shoulder girdle).

So I’ve starting doing a variation of the...

You might have noticed, that in Pilates and yoga push-ups are done with the elbows close to the body (aka narrow push-ups), vs. sticking out to the sides, like in more traditional fitness. I’ve heard them called “Triceps Push-ups” which is really a misnomer. Any push ups in...

Let me show you a fun but challenging exercise to build strength in the shoulders for push-ups. I use the magic circle, one of my favorite tools to create core stability. The catch with push-ups is this: We assume that we can build stronger shoulders and arms by doing them. But that's not always...

If you’re here, then all of the different moves can seem overwhelming. Don’t be intimidated! While the moves may seem extremely technical and pre-determined, there is actually a lot of flexibility within them. In fact, you can even do some of these exercises at your desk, to free your...