4 Week Beginner Pilates Mat Series

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Beginner Pilates Mat Series

4 weeks – Wednesdays at 5pm

October 3, 10, 17, 24

Everybody has to start somewhere and if you are looking to start practicing Pilates or maybe come back to your practice, this is a great place to start. The Pilates Mat for Beginners class will focus on learning the fundamental Pilates skills as it introduces participants to a beginner  mat sequence perfect for building strength and mobility in your body no matter where you are starting. By committing to 4 weeks you’ll have a chance to not just try it out but to really experience how a weekly Pilates class can change how your body feels.  This is a great class for those brand new to Pilates, those coming back to their Pilates practice and those who are wanting to just fine tune their Pilates practice.
4 week package runs from October 3-24th,   Wednesdays at 5 pm
Need to miss a class due to other commitments? No worries, you can make up the class in the next 4 week session!
Cost $49.00

When’s the last time you exercised your feet?

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Sometimes when I start talking about feet exercises or showing them to clients I gets some crazy looks.  I can just imagine the dialog going on in my clients head……

“I came here to do Pilates, you know…strengthen my core and tone my body so I can feel strong and energized in my life.  I can’t believe I’m paying for a Pilates session and we are doing “foot exercises”.  I’m mean really.. my feet are fine and how in the world is exercising my feet going to help me get a strong core, keep my back pain at bay and look good in my favorite jeans?  I’m not really breaking a sweat working my feet…how could this be good for me? Aren’t there more important things we should be doing?”

I get where clients are coming from.  If you’ve never thought about or been educated on the importance of your feet/ankles in relationship to how the rest of your body moves, then foot exercises probably seem ridiculous!  But I can tell you from someone who specializes in movement, it is SO important to take care of your feet!! And this doesn’t just mean taking care of them when they are hurting or are causing you pain, but taking care of them so they don’t ever cause you pain! And just in case you are wondering….paying attention to your feet CAN totally help you find proper alignment in your body, prevent injuries, strengthen the entire body more efficiently and can even help you lessen or get rid of back pain!

The wonderful thing about taking care of your feet is that it is truly not difficult and does not take a lot of time to do it.  But the little time and effort you put into your feet now can save you years of misery later in life!

Want to start learning more?  Here’s some basic foot facts that you might find interesting!!

  1. The foot and ankle contain: 26 bones (One-quarter of the bones in the human body are in the feet.); 33 joints; more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments (Tendons are fibrous tissues that connect muscles to bones and ligaments are fibrous tissues that connect bones to other bones.)
  2. During an average day of walking, the total forces on your feet can total hundreds of tons, equivalent to an average of a fully loaded cement truck.
  3. 75% of Americans will experience foot problems at one time or another in their lives.   ( WOW– thats 3 out of every 4 people!!)
  4. Women have about four times as many foot problems as men. High heels are partly to blame.
  5. It’s rare that two feet are exactly the same; one of them is often larger than the other.
  6. Over 2 million Americans seek treatment for plantar fasciitis (heel pain) each year.
  7. Foot disorders in the elderly are extremely common and are the cause of much pain and disability, and consequent loss of mobility and independence.
  8. 1/4 of all the bones in the human body are down in your feet. When these bones are out of alignment, so is the rest of the body.
  9. When walking, each time your heel lifts off the ground it forces the toes to carry one half of your body weight.  ( Who knew your toes were so strong??)
  10. Your feet mirror your general health. Conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, nerve and circulatory disorders can show their initial symptoms in the feet — so foot ailments can be your first sign of more serious medical problems.

    Click here to register.

 

 

Intrigued?  Join me on for my Healthy Feet Workshop on October 6 th where we’ll dive into learning about why your feet are so important to how the rest of your body moves and you’ll learn lots of “foot exercises” that you can easily start incorporating into your life to keep your feet and body healthy throughout your lifetime!!

October Life Inspired: Mindful Mat with Jane

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Life Inspired is our free monthly community event! This month’s class is Mindful Mat Pilates with Jane. Mindful Mat Pilates is a class focused on learning the basic Pilates Mat exercises in your body, with an emphasis on the Pilates principles of control, breath, centering and concentration. You’ll learn to adjust exercises to your individual body allowing you to achieve more strength, balance and mobility in your body.

If you are brand new to Pilates you’ll love this class as a way to learn the basics and experience how great Pilates can feel in your body. Those with Pilates experience will enjoy experiencing how focusing on the mindfulness of each exercise can help you get even more out of each exercise. You’ll walk out of class feeling refreshed, refocused and amazing in your body!

This is a free class but space is limited so please sign up ahead of time to reserve your spot! Sign up using our online scheduling system or email us at rcpilates1@gmail.com or call us at 319.665.2499 to sign up.

Do you want your high school body back?

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Do ever wish you were in high school again? Me neither….but there are days when I wish I had the physical body of a high schooler! Whether you are 40 or 80…I don’t need to tell you that the way our body feels as we age changes.  For many of us, looking back on the things we did with our body as a youth leaves us longing for the days of not noticing body aches, pains and discomfort.  We realize how nice it was to not have to feel our body so much and not to feel limited in our life by those aches, pains and even injuries that seem to have crept up on us over the years.  We find ourselves asking…how did I get here?  I used to be so flexible, so strong, so ache free!  We find ourselves feeling helpless to the natural aging process that leaves us feeling creakier and less mobile than our younger days. 

I wish I could tell you I had a magic pill that could make your body feel like it did when you were 20…but you already know there is no magic pill.  The good news is though that there are lots of ways you can use your movement time in your life to slow down the progression of the “feel of aging” in your body.  Safe movement time that maintains and builds strength and mobility in your body might be the closest thing out there to a magic pill for aging! Try incorporating these simple but magical concepts into your life and see if they make a difference in how your body feels:

  1. Maintain and Build Strength  After 30 it is possible to lose 5% muscle each decade if you are not proactively doing exercise and movement in your life that will maintain and build strength.  Strength training comes in lots of different forms and it really doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you are doing movements that are safe for your body and target where you need to strengthen.  You can use weights and do a traditional strength training type workout, you can use your body weight as resistance and do things like squats, push ups, tricep presses etc., you can use resistance bands or you can take up movement practices like Pilates or Yoga that incorporate strength training into everything they do.  
  2. Maintain and Improve Flexibility Feeling less flexible as you get older really isn’t related so much to your age but to the fact that you stopped using your muscles in the ranges that you did when you were younger and so they continue to get tighter and tighter and before you know it it feels like you can barely bend over to tie your shoes! What’s the key to maintaining and even gaining flexibility and mobility as you age?  The key is to practice movements that stretch your muscles to what feels like close to their end range.  Just plain stretching will accomplish this or you can practice movement that has a stretching component built in like Pilates or Yoga.  
  3. Maintain and Improve Core Strength  Maintaining strong core muscles will give your body a support system of strength that will help you do everything you want to do in life better.  Whether your movement goals are running a marathon or piggyback rides for your kiddos…core strength is the key to doing these things well and not getting injured!  Core strength will keep your back feeling healthy, mobile and keep it injury free. 
  4. Keep Practicing Balance  Kids are natural at balancing and the reason they are so good at it is that they practice! Kids are always naturally working on balance when they are climbing things, playing sports, and playing at the playground.  As adults we start to lose the ability to balance because we often don’t challenge ourselves to do it.  Feeling uneasy about balancing our bodies in space is uncomfortable and usually brings up feelings of feeling “old”!  Start practicing you balance at home or take up a practice like Pilates or Yoga that continually works on challenging your balancing skills.  
  5. Practice Your Breathing  This one seems so simple and silly that most people ignore it…until they discover how much it can help them.  Learning to breathe well and use breathe in your movement and exercise time can not only help you move better it can help you destress and reduce anxiety.  Moving with ease and feeling a sense of ease through our bodies…feels youthful. It also helps with circulation which in turn helps everything in our body function better and leaves us feeling more energized.  Breathing can be practiced on its own or you can find a mind body practice like Pilates or Yoga that incorporates breath into each movement. 

I love to multi task so practicing Pilates or Yoga just makes sense to me when it comes to the perfect anti-aging exercise.  These mind body practices build strength, improve flexibility, strengthen your core, improve your balance and on top of it all leave you feeling less stressed and energized because of the breath focus!!  As a teacher one of my favorite classes I teach is one I named Anti-Aging Pilates Equipment.  This small class (5 people maximum)  combines exercises utilizing the Pilates equipment and a series of functional balance stations to work on this whole list above! The balance stations are designed to safely challenge balance and strengthen in a way that prepares us for life’s balance challenges(not falling when we trip on the side walk, balancing a 3 year old on your shoulders so they can see better, etc.!).  All exercises are beginner friendly and participants range from 30 to 80 in age…because let’s face it we all need anti-aging Pilates no matter what age we are!  

 

 

Are you tired of feeling stiff and achy?

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One of the most common complaints I hear from my clients as they age is stiffness and specifically morning stiffness. If you often find yourself feeling stiff and creaky wondering what is going on with your body…I have some great news for you.  There are lots of things you can do to improve how your body feels and diminish the feeling of stiffness!  

Robert Chu wrote a great article called 10 Tips to Overcome Morning Stiffness and here’s what he lists as the main causes of Morning Stiffness :
The basic causes of morning stiffness are lack of daily physical activity, being overweight, having a poor diet, not sleeping properly, and being in an environment that tends to be cold and/or damp.  

The great news about this list is that all of these things are things you have control over!  By doing things like moving more, paying attention to what you are eating, having good sleep habits and keeping your environment comfortable you can keep your self feeling less stiff and creaky and more mobile!  

Here’s a few of my favorite movement inspired tips for feeling best in your body:

  1. Regular exercise that moves your body in a variety of ways.  You know how every time you look at a 5 year old they are doing something different with their body…jumping, twisting, summersaulting, squatting, etc.?  As adults we could take some lessons from those 5 year olds.  My favorite motto when it comes to our aging bodies is: move it or lose it! When we don’t regularily move our body in different ways… we start to lose the ability to move like that. It might not be socially acceptable for most adults to twist and cartwheel throughout their days, but what we can do is choose exercise time that encourages our bodies to move in a variety of ways to counter the fact that most of us are probably not moving as much as our bodies would like them too!  Practices like Pilates, Yoga and Martial Arts are great for safely introducing a variety of movements.   
  2. Add more mini movement time throughout your days.  When we make an effort to look at our activity throughout our days most of us probably are finding we are pretty sedentary.  Taking more breaks from sitting, parking further away at the grocery store or always getting up during commercials of your favorite TV show can help keep your body moving more and feeling less stiff and creaky!  Need some ideas on how to move more?  Check out our Office Pilates series on YOUTUBE for a great series of movements that can be done at the office or even from your favorite lounge chair at home!! 
  3. Drink lots of water...this one seems so simple but it is so important! Did you know staying well hydrated actually helps your joints feel better?  Read more about the benefits of drinking more water and joint pain here! It turns out your joints need water to stay healthy and as you might guess everything in our body functions better when it has enough water.  If you are adding more movement time in you may want to consider adding more water in to your life as your body will need it to function at it’s best!  
  4. Stretch more.  The feeling of stiffness often is a result of muscle tightness that happens due to our lifestyle. Sitting for long periods of time can especially affect muscles in our neck, back and hips.  Self massage techniques using small therapy balls is one of my favorite ways to  stretch and lengthen tight muscles and fascia(the connective tissue covering the muscles in our body).  If you are new to these techniques try a rolling class like our Roll, Release and Relax class that is designed to help you stretch and lengthen muscles throughout your entire body! Do you experience tightness in your low back, hips or backs of legs?  Some simple stretches at home with a theraband or yoga strap can really help loosen up tight muscles and will probably only take 5-10 minutes at the most! 

Looking for some ways to add more healthy, safe movement into your life? We would love to introduce you to the benefits of a mindful movement practice like Pilates in your life!  Sign up for a complimentary private session to get introduced to the studio, talk to an experienced teacher about your health goals and get introduced to Pilates!  

Meet the Rivercity Pilates Instructor: Jane

Tell us about yourself / your family.
I’m a small-town Iowa girl, born into a family that can trace its roots back for generations. My brother (older) and sister (younger) would probably describe me as a “problem child,” and admittedly, that middle position does have its challenges. Yet I think that’s why I always felt a need to break out of the mold, and why I am today, so fiercely independent. We traveled often as a family, which helped to instill in me a strong sense of Roots as well as a huge urge for Adventure.

For family reasons, I returned to Iowa after almost 10 years away- in Arizona, as a school media specialist, and in a brief gig as a computer lab instructor on Grand Cayman Island. My only son and daughter-in-law live in North Liberty, so buying a house in Tiffin seemed like a perfect choice. (Not too close, not too far!) I have one grand-dog, Jack, and two grand-cats, Oliver and Jones. Three fur-babies live with me in Tiffin: an Arizona rescued Min Pin, Maci Rose; an Iowa-born Maine Coon, Gypsy; and an Iowa stray tortoiseshell, Thunder.  

Describe yourself in 5 words.

  1. Sensitive
  2. Compassionate
  3. Risk-taker.
  4. Driven
  5. Faithful- in every sense of the word.

Tell us about your first Pilates experience.    When/Why did you start practicing Pilates? 
Over 30 years ago, I took a Pilates class at my local YWCA and loved it. Much more recently, during a similar class in West Des Moines, I noticed nice changes in my body. I felt longer… leaner… stronger. Out of all the exercises and classes I took, Pilates was by far my favorite.

After moving to this area in 2017, I signed up for emails from Rivercity Pilates. Due to life circumstances, it took several months to actually contact the studio. But when I received an email about the teacher training program, I signed up for a complimentary session with Carey as well as the training program. I started taking classes and practicing regularly, and I’ve never really looked back.

Favorite food / or favorite restaurant
Cantina Laredo in Gilbert, Arizona. It makes my mouth water just to think of their guacamole.

If money were no object, what would you do all day?
Travel, travel, travel… or …………Become a professional chef!
Open my own Pilates studio (not in Iowa)!
Take art classes!
Become a floral designer and open a flower shop!

Why did you become a Pilates teacher?
To be honest, I became a Pilates teacher because the timing was perfect in my life. More importantly, I love how practicing Pilates moves my body and quiets my mind; as a retired educator, I’ve rediscovered my love for teaching and learning in general. It’s a perfect union.  

Describe why you love Pilates in three words.
Pilates moves me. (In every sense of the word!)    

Would you rather hike or bike? 
Hike! It’s a great way to slow down, enjoy the scenery, and notice the small things in Life up close and personal. I’ll never forget the first time I hiked the Superstition Mountains in Arizona; a tarantula crossed the path directly in front of me and I found it fascinating, even though I am terrified of even the smallest eight-legged creature.

If you could live anywhere in the world — where would you want to live?
I love the desert and frequently look for houses near my former home in Gilbert. If personal finances allowed, I would love to have a cabin in the mountains so I could escape the heat periodically. It can get pretty intense although it truly is a “dry heat.” I loved it!  

Or on a beach… I did it for a very brief time and loved every second of it.

What are your favorite ways to incorporate movement into your life in addition to Pilates?
I walk my dog daily- frequently more than once, do a lot of yardwork, and also do a little biking. I had trained with professional boxers in the West Des Moines area before moving last spring; I was at the gym every morning at 7am and Ioved every minute of those training sessions. Finding a similar facility has been on my to-do list!        

Who would you want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?
My family and my fur-babies. But I hope friends would visit!   

If you won an amazing prize, and the choice was either take an incredible vacation or get the dollar value in cash — which would you pick?
The vacation- in a heartbeat. I’m not really into money.

Would you rather enjoy a houseboat or a speed boat?
It would really depend on the weather and the mood of the day, as I love both.  

Do you have a guilty pleasure?    Something that is generally looked upon as wrong — but you keep doing it?
Eating junk food! <grin> (Although I hate its effect on my body!) And binge-watching cooking shows and Big Bang Theory.

If you could live in a book, TV Show or Movie – what would it be? 

Definitely a book because I love the printed page. My favorite genre is Historical Fiction yet it would be impossible to select a single title. More than likely, it would be whatever book I am reading at the given moment. I tend to lose myself when I read.

What animal best represents you and why? 

Cats! They’re such quiet and curious creatures, absolutely fascinated by everything in their world. And I love watching them move!  

Do you have a pet peeve?

I have actually lost sleep over this question, because I don’t know if I have a pet peeve. There are several things I don’t like but in general, I’m pretty accepting of other people and things in my world. If I had to choose, I would have to say that a pet peeve is people who judge others; I try not to do that, perhaps because others have harshly judged me. We’re all here for such a short time and judgment seems a waste of it.