Three ways to heat up your Ab Workouts.

Last week’s snowstorms were replaced by this week’s frigid temperatures.  The kind of temperatures that turn noses red and burn in the fingertips, the kind of cold that shows in the breath and runny nose, the kind of cold that causes all human beings to rigidly shake when they make it inside with an animalistic, “BRRRRRRR!”  And yes this is the second week in a row that I am writing about the weather in The Pilates Studio’s weekly blog…

Why?  It is partly because I am fascinated with the way that the body protects our beings from our environment.  How is it that in most climates our bodies can maintain a homeostatic temperature of about 98.6?  How does our movement add to this process?  What are the after effects on our posture?  Does the cold make us sore?  And how can we use movement to protect us from the cold?  The frigid, bitter, frostbiting cold.     

Last week’s snowstorms led me to write about keeping our bodies safe while shoveling mounds and mounds of wet snow, but there’s something we didn’t talk about.  Shoveling snow is hard exercise.  While we all need to protect our bodies from the wear and tear caused by this inevitable winter task, when we shovel we get the added warming benefit.  We begin to sweat through our first layer.  Our cheeks get warm.  We start breathing rapidly, and after a lot of shoveling, we may even start to strip layers of clothing off of our bodies.  Maybe even baring our arms to get that scarce New England Vitamin D. 

Shoveling snow keeps us warm, but in the frigid cold of this week, the snow has been shoveled and thus the warming effect is gone.  Our shoulders keep inching towards our ears to keep our neck warm.  Our spine rounds forward to protect our most important organs from the cold.  Our muscles stiffen.   Our movement lessens, and unfortunately we just seem to get colder. 

Well, Pilates to the rescue.  The following exercises are a great body-warming recipe.  At the end of the workout you’ll be ready to enter the cold.  And you’ll at least make it to your car and be warm long enough for its heater to start blowing warm air.

First the classic: The Pilates HUNDRED. 

This exercise is often seen as a killer abdominal exercise, but Joseph Pilates intended it to be a heater!  HE intended this to increase circulation and to heat up the body.

To get all of the warming effects from this fabulous exercise be sure to check this link for THE HUNDRED and use the sniffing breath.  And if you’re bored with just one version of THE HUNDRED. then read every post for the entire month of November.  You could heat your body up in 30 different ways.

The next heating step, is rigorously engaging the large muscles of the thighs.   This is what warms us up when we are shoveling, but in the absence of snow try the following video.  It is a lunge series that will improve your balance and create great blood flow!

Finally the shoulders and the cold don’t mix.  Try these few exercises to recover from a walk in the cold.  You know the kind of walks where your arms are crossed and your shoulders are hiked to your ears.  Your head is down to keep the wind out of your ears…These protective measures can reek havoc on your neck and shoulders.  Try the following to recover, and enjoy the added benefit of improved posture.  

Opening the Spine over the FOAM ROLLER

Snow angels on the FOAM ROLLER

Elbow circles on the FOAM ROLLER

Where the women are strong and the men are brave

Something very unusual happened to me last week. During one of my sessions there were four people working out in the studio and they were all men! Why is it unusual for four men to be doing pilates at the same time? Joseph Pilates the creator of the method was a man. He was a boxer and a gymnast. He originally intended his work to be for men. So once again why was it weird to have four men in the studio working out at the same time? Well it's simple really because right now more women practice Pilates than men.

Pilates is booming. People have heard of it, studios are everywhere, it's even making it into dialog in movies and tv shows. Yet, somehow in the brilliant marketing of recent pilates studios and teachers Pilates has become known as exercise for women...what? First of all, I've always wondered why someone would think that one kind of exercise is for women and another is for men. Whether it's hockey, volleyball, running, swimming, or Pilates. Luckily, we now live in a world where any man or woman can do any activity they want...but still there is this social stigma about men and Pilates. (ok the word stigma seems a little strong, but there I said it.)

In my practice most of the men I see were brought to Pilates by their partners or wives. We even have a running joke that it takes about four years for a client to convince her husband to come to the studio. Why? Well, it is not because Pilates is easy. Pilates is hard work. People who do Pilates correctly are strong and that's that! People who practice Pilates also gain flexibility and increase range of motion. People who practice Pilates are better at the sports they want to play.

As I was thinking about this post, I was surfing the internet and I found this interview of Rael Isacowitz:

http://pilates.about.com/od/teachersandstyles/a/Pilates-Interview-Rael-Isacowitz_3.htm

He is a world renowned master teacher. He was asked a question about Pilates and men, and his answer was wonderfully eloquent. He spoke about the history. That Joseph Pilates originally intended his work to be exercise for men but then when he moved to New York most of his students were women. He spoke about the different energies that men and women bring to pilates, and how those different energies need to be acknowledged and honored. This made me think back to the session that I taught last week, it certainly had different energy. It was new for me, but so exciting!

I was talking to another friend last night and he told me that Rob Bradford on WEEI was talking about Josh Beckett the Red Sox pitcher, who is starting out what is going to be a phenomenal season. He did Pilates in the off season to rehabilitate injuries that kept him out for nine weeks last season.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view/2011_0405righty_starts_2011with_plenty_to_prove/

I think the tide is turning...Which brings me to the title of this post. To all of the men out there who ignored the media and came to Pilates before Josh Beckett, thank you for changing the face of an evolving system of exercise. And to my four dear clients that inspired this post, thank you for a fun hour, and thank you for informing me about the NFL strike that is looming.

Katrina Hawley C.M.A, R.S.M.E

Pilates Instructor