Libby StanforthInstructor Libby has a passion for helping beginners and people who want to stay active as they age. She fell in love with Pilates in the mid-’90s, but it took another 15 years before she rediscovered it. Unfortunately, her first experience wasn’t great due to inadequate training and mediocre results. However, she found The […]
Continue readingCathy LawlorPolestar® Pilates Instructor Cathy became interested in Pilates as a means of exercising and aging gracefully. As she continued her practice, she not only noticed improvements in her physical strength but also felt a strong connection to the approach of mind, body, and spirit. This connection resonated with her background in physical therapy, which […]
Continue readingMaureen SheaPilates Instructor Movement integration is at the heart of Maureen’s movement teaching and practice. She has taught Pilates since 2004, originally training with Jacqueline Ethier in Fletcher Pilates® in Ottawa, Canada.Maureen graduated from Polestar Pilates’ Comprehensive teaching program in 2014, and has mentored teachers in training both in Hadley and Montreal. Maureen is also […]
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Planks are a favorite in the fitness world, and there is no question why. They are the superfood of exercises- densely packed with benefits.In its purest form, a plank is a position similar to the start of a push-up but held steady for a specific duration of time. While it’s a powerful, simple position to […]
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One of the best ways to build muscle and bone strength on the mat is weight bearing exercises. The trouble is, wrists.Wrists commonly complain when they are called upon to support the body in positions like: hands and knees, plank, push up or downward dog. We can’t blame them. That’s a lot of performance pressure to […]
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The Roll Over is a challenging and complicated pilates mat exercise. Once you have a good amount of spinal mobility, and abdominal control the roll over becomes a restorative exercise rather than an ambitious one. Joseph Pilates believed roll overs could calm the nervous system and help you sleep better.Before you roll right into the […]
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First it was good ole’ fashion mental stress. Followed by upper cross syndrome. Then we added text neck, and Laptop-itis to the problem. And just recently we have the Zoom hunch making neck and shoulder tension worse and more common than ever before. Prior to 2020 people spent, on average, 6 hours 31 minutes a day in front […]
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Dormant butt, Dead Butt or Gluteal Amnesia. All unfortunate terms used to describe the same thing: weak glutes. Whether we sit most of the day or only stick to one form of exercise most of us aren’t properly using our glute muscles and more people than you think are experiencing this condition. Weak glutes can […]
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A lack of thoracic spine mobility means that the lumbar spine, pelvis, shoulders and surrounding muscles all compensate to allow you to move how you want to move. Long term, those compensations can lead to stiffness, strain, pain and injury.What causes thoracic immobility? Immobility. As a society we aren’t moving very much. We’re sitting in […]
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Janice, a 69-year-old retail supervisor, was fit, active and passionate about her job. When a back injury prevented her from working and made the simplest tasks difficult and painful, she was left feeling miserable and frustrated.I could barely move“I hurt my back at work right around the beginning of the pandemic. I could barely move. […]
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