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Seated Push-Through on the Trapeze Table is a great way to get the spine and shoulders moving, and...

The exercise links within the text will lead you directly to the Pilates Encyclopedia.  If you're not a member yet, today's a great day to sign up for the 7-day free trial. 

We curl the head, neck, and shoulders up so often in Pilates. Unfortunately, neck tension goes hand-in-hand...

Your shoulder blades need to be able to move apart (protraction) and towards each other (retraction). 

The muscles required for protraction are your serratus anterior, the ones responsible for retraction are your rhomboids and middle trapezius.

Some of us tend to either squeeze our scapulae...

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...