Mind Body

In order to maintain confidence after experiencing failure or disappointment, it is important to stay positive and tell yourself that you can overcome the setback and come back stronger than ever. Maintaining a positive self-image is also important.
 
Transcript: "Are there any ways to maintain confidence after experiencing failure or disappointment? Look, if you have big goals and dreams in sport and life, you will experience failure and disappointment. It's just part of the deal. Totally normal and to be expected. However, it's also up to you how far a setback sets you back and for how long. So why not use setbacks instead to set yourself forward? Tell yourself, now I'm even more driven than I was before. In fact, this adversity is just a golden opportunity to show myself and the world how bad I want this. It's also important to maintain a positive self-image no matter what. Tell yourself, no, that was not like me. I'll make a small adjustment or a correction and come back stronger than ever. I've got this. And that's how you maintain confidence after experiencing failure and disappointment. Good luck."

The chakras are vital to how we express our life force energy. They receive and assimilate information, regulate emotions, and can be auto-regulated through visualizations and intentions. If the chakra is not healthy it will compromise our ability to authentically express our life force energy.
 
Transcript: "The integrity of your chakra health overall is vitally important to how you express your life force energy in this world. The chakra has four primary responsibilities and again the chakra is an individual vortex that literally receives and assimilates information that travels through your bio field and so it assimilates and receives information that's the primary function. The second thing is that it helps regulate the emotions within the body. It also relates to various different layers of consciousness and can be auto-regulated with visualizations and intentions. So if the chakra is not healthy and functioning it will compromise your ability to authentically express your life force energy and let's use life force energy along with vitality how you express to the world."
 Chakra Health

Joseph Pilates believed there were six different components that should be taken into consideration when performing his method of exercise: breathing, concentration, centering, control, precision and flow. Stott Pilates has added two additional principles, scapular movement and stabilization and lower chain as far as it's moving of an instability.
 
Transcript: "What are the principles that form the foundation of Pilates? Joseph Pilates believed there were six different components that should be taken into consideration when performing his method of exercise that he actually called Contrology. And they are breathing, concentration, centering, control, precision, and flow. Breathing. Breath should initiate all movement. We should breathe before we move. Concentration. The mind should be connected to the body and you should be knowing what your body is doing and what that level of muscle activation is and what those movement patterns are. Centering. Joseph Pilates believed that your center, your powerhouse as he called it, we often now call it core, should be engaged always before you move. Control. That you should have a control of your movements and they should be done precisely, which brings us into precision, precision of movement. He felt it was more important to do anywhere from three to ten perfectly executed exercises than to do like three sets of ten. Flow. There should be a flow of your movements and that's actually a concept that we now consider dynamic stability. Since the 1990s, there have been several methods of Pilates that have been established. I teach a method called Stop Pilates. In Stop Pilates, we have six biomechanical principles that draw deeply from Joseph Pilates' original teachings and then start to bring some other things into consideration. We bring a little more awareness to scapular movement and stabilization, for instance, head and neck placement and the role that that plays as far as our spinal movements and stability, our lower chain as far as its movement and stability, and of course that powerhouse we now call it pelvic placement and we have two different safe places for the pelvis to be. Click on the link here to learn more about Stop Pilates at the Marathe website."
 learn more about STOTT PILATES

Pilates can help with strengthening the deepest abdominal muscles, spinal muscles and posture, alignment, balance and mind-body connection. It can also be done at different levels of intensity depending on the user's needs.
 
Transcript: "What are the benefits of practicing Pilates? So many. Let's start with you're going to strengthen your core. You're going to strengthen the deepest of that abdominal muscle, the transversus abdominis, and your spinal muscles. And this is going to help to keep your low back safe and strong, which is going to help you better accept load through your body. It can help with your posture and alignment by identifying muscles that are lengthened and strengthening them and elongating any muscles that might be short or tight. It can help with your balance. It can help with your mind-body concentration and connection, really understanding where your body is in space, how it's moving, what the level of muscle activation is needed for any given activity. What's also really nice about Pilates is that you can really do it at different levels of intensity. Right? So you can do mat work that is just a body weight or perhaps you're incorporating some small props like small stability balls or flex bands or fitness circle or weights. And then you can progress into using the Pilates equipment that has spring tension and you can really change that from being very light spring tension to really heavy and intense spring tension. You can add in some cardio elements by jumping on a cardio tramp that's connected to the end of the reformer. So the benefits are you're going to improve your body, you're going to improve your strength, you're going to improve your proprioception, but also that you can do it at different levels so you can really kind of do it every single day and not need to take that time off to allow for muscle regrowth and all of those types of things because you can change that level of intensity. So it's great, it's awesome, everybody should do Pilates. Yeah."

I showed some common Pilates exercises such as the Hundred, Shoulder Bridge, Open Leg Rocker, Rolling Like a Ball, Teaser, Footwork, Lift and Lower, Leg Circles, Stag, and Back Rowing. These exercises focus on different aspects of fitness such as endurance, balance, core strength, glute strengthening, ab work, spinal articulation, shoulder girdle strength, and range of motion.
 
Transcript: "Can I show some common Pilates exercises? Let's start with some mat work. This is the hundred. To me, this is the most famous exercise of Joseph Pilates. It's all about warming up the abdominals, warming up the body, and exercise of endurance. This is called the shoulder bridge. This is a great glute-strengthening exercise, and again, endurance, being in that inverted position for several repetitions, lowering and lifting the legs. The spine is neutral here, so lots of core strength as well. We have two exercises here that focus on balance and spinal articulation. First, the open leg rocker, the harder of the two, with those long legs and finding that balance at the top. Next, we have rolling like a ball, nice and round, again, finding your balance just behind the sit bones at the top of the movement. This is another famous Pilates exercise called the teaser. Lots of ab strength, spinal articulation, hip flexor strength, shoulder girdle stability and awareness. I'm showing this exercise here on the Cadillac, which is also known as the trapeze table. All right, this piece of equipment is known as the reformer, and what I'm doing here is called footwork in the high half-toe position, followed by a lower and lifting of the heels. This is a great way to strengthen all the muscles around the hip, knee and ankle. Feet and straps, an absolute favorite for anyone who practices Pilates on the reformer. This first one is called lift and lower, lengthening through the hamstrings. Now I have leg circles, great full range of motion through that hip joint. The last one is called stag, where my two legs are going in different directions, but I've got to keep tension on both straps, very challenging. The last exercise that I have time for is called back rowing on the reformer. Some ab work, some spinal articulation, shoulder girdle strength and range of motion. Hope you like the Pilates exercises you've seen."

Pilates can be done with just your body and no equipment, but there is also equipment such as reformers, the Cadillac, stability chair, and barrels that can be used to enhance the workout. Additionally, there are small props such as balls, foam rollers, and stability cushions that can be used for proprioception and challenge.
 
Transcript: "What equipment is needed to do Pilates? The main piece of equipment that you need is your body. Pilates mat work is a great workout and a great way to strengthen yourself and you don't need any equipment to do that other than you. But let's take a little tour around this Pilates studio so that you can see other equipment if you want to explore it. All right, so here we have some reformers. These ones here are closed up right now. They have a vertical frame which allows us to do a lot of the exercises that we do on the Cadillac. Here is a reformer that's open and you can see the springs and the foot bar and the ropes. This is the Cadillac, also known as the trapeze table or the rack. This is called the stability chair. This is the piece of equipment Joseph Pilates designed for home use. Very small, you can do nice seated, standing and balance exercises on it. There are also several barrels. This one's called the ladder barrel by the ladder as you can see here and the barrel. We do a lot of ab work here as well as some glute work and great lateral flexion exercises. Small props, lots of small props, balls and foam rollers and stability cushions and all sorts of things to enhance someone's proprioception and challenge them. But once again, don't need anything other than your body to try out Pilates but if the equipment excites you, there's lots of choices to be had."