Most Pilates instructors learn the same thing, and that’s avoid flexion for anyone with low bone density. That usually means no Roll Down, Roll Up or Rolling Like a Ball. The rule is often presented as fact. Its main source is a 1984 study of 59 women. Only nine were…
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A client books a 7pm Tuesday session. She comes twice, cancels the next four and stops replying. Hmmmmm…something is up. The story we may tell ourselves is that she lost interest. Another possible reason is that the gym at seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening is unbearable. The music, the…
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5.4 million people in the UK have osteoarthritis in at least one knee. That figure comes from Arthritis UK, the charity formerly known as Versus Arthritis, in its State of Musculoskeletal Health 2025. The same report puts the median age at which symptoms begin at around fifty-five. Not eighty-five. Fifty-five,…
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Twenty-nine systematic reviews. Eight hundred and sixty-three separate trials. Twenty-four different treatments, all pointed at the same problem, which is the muscle ache about a day after a client does something their body has not done in a while. That’s a huge amount of evidence which the research team pulled…
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Many of us have a client who has started moving differently. They take the stairs one at a time now. They reach for the back of a chair before they sit down. Somewhere in the warm-up chat they mention a bit of a stumble in the kitchen last month, and…
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Few moments in a client’s life involve as much physical change, and as much uncertainty about what to do next, as the months after having a baby. New mums arrive nervous and with many, many questions about the changes in their body. Is it safe to lift again? What about…
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Most of us have worked with a client who was having a hard time with their mental health. The low energy, the missed sessions, the days when they were just not themselves, whatever we tried with the programme. For many, the advice was to speak to their GP, who might…
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A cancer diagnosis used to mean rest, wait and recover. For a long time the standard advice was to take it easy, conserve energy and let the treatment do its work. That advice is starting to change. There is now a serious and growing body of research showing that structured…
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Most of us, at some point in our careers, will have had a client that’s experienced persistent, niggling tendon pain. The patellar tendon that flares on the stairs, the Achilles that is stiff for the first ten minutes of every run, the shoulder that complains on the overhead press. The…
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Most of us have a client whose blood pressure sits a little higher than they would like. Maybe their GP has had a quiet word. Maybe they are on medication and want to do something themselves alongside it. The usual advice is to walk more and eat better, which is…
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