Welcome to the August edition of Pilates Central News.

In this edition:

• Pilates and better balance as we age
• Strictly Pilates
• The joy of socks
• Pilates hacks

Pilates and better balance as we age

People often experience problems with their balance as they age. It’s common for older people’s health to decline after they suffer a fall, particularly if they suffer from osteoporosis and break bones. If you are having problems with balance then it is wise to check out factors such as blood pressure, heart health, eyesight, and inner ear problems. But if none of these are a problem then Pilates can certainly help with balance.

Pilates can be good for say tennis players who require balance while playing on one leg or footballers who want to glide past tackles but also for the elderly losing their coordination and, the evidence suggests, for those with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s Disease. Balance is about more than just standing on one leg, though this is a good test. You need balance for running and walking, walking up stairs or standing up from a chair without falling over.

It can train your proprioception to be better. Proprioception is sometimes referred to as the sixth sense. It is how the body senses its position and movement in space. Receptors in your muscles, joints and tendons and even skin send messages to the brain — a kind of biological software that enables your body to know where your arms, legs, hands and feet are in relation to your body, to help you move smoothly and without falling.

As we get older that sense of spatial awareness involved with our balance and coordination can decline. Changes occur in muscle strength, nerves age and the body becomes slower at sending signals to the brain. Injuries can also affect our proprioception. The hunched posture typical of some people as they age can be the result of spine and trunk muscles weakening and losing their stability. Pilates aims to correct this.

Working on the core will lead to stability in the body as a whole. Pilates will help to improve the muscles you need to give better coordination and balance. Joseph Pilates originally called his system contrology, and good balance is about controlling the position of your body. The slow movements will re-train the receptors in your muscles, joints and tendons resulting in improved habits and better reactions.

Your Pilates teacher will look at the quality of movement and alignment and control of the body, getting your limbs in right position so that they work effectively. They might test your ability to control your body while, say, standing on one leg. Strong muscles help control body movements and better lower limb strength leads to stronger ankles and less falls. The Reformer can work on all the smaller muscle groups vital to coordination and balance.

Many Pilates movements will challenge your balance, such as lunging on the chair or side splits on a Reformer. With mat Pilates bridges, quadruped exercises and squats can all help with balance.

Regular exercise will also improve all-round fitness and body awareness. Pilates can help with your confidence and ability to balance while doing everyday tasks. It will hopefully improve your life balance in every sense.

Strictly Pilates

What’s occurrin’? Pilates and dancing it seems. Melanie Walters, who in Gavin and Stacey plays Stacey’s mum, the omelette-loving Gwen West, is one of the contestants in the new season of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Melanie’s not just an actress though, she’s also a qualified Pilates teacher. Wales Online reveals: “She has been dedicated to Pilates for more than two decades, having gained her instructor qualification in 2002 — five years prior to Gavin and Stacey’s debut episode in 2007.”

Walters, who is 64, set up her own company Practical Pilates Ltd and teaches at Pili-Pala in her home-town of Swansea, focusing on Pilates and homeopathy. Pili-Pala is the Welsh word for butterfly. She’s participated in workshops with Polestar Pilates, Stott, Body Control Pilates, Active Pilates, Lolita San Miguel and Alan Herdman in London. Walters is now an advanced instructor, having qualified at the Pilates Institute in London and presumably also serves the best omelettes in Wales to her clients.

Walters combines teaching Pilates with acting and most recently appeared in Death Valley. Will Pilates help her win Strictly? Her on-screen daughter Joanna Page, aka Stacey, told Magic FM: “She’s a pretty nifty mover. So I think she would be absolutely fab on it. I want to say she’s very flexible because she is… So if anybody could do it, Mel could do it.”

The joy of socks

“The Pilates socks sparking conversations about Jesus,” is the unlikely headline in Woman Alive magazine. The socks in question are called Grace Grips and are marked with a cross. They are the brainchild of Christian influencer and Pilates teacher Grace Totten.

The aptly-named and amazing Grace explains: “I feel like grip socks are a bit like a fashion statement in Pilates. There are so many beautiful designs, coffee, matcha, flowers, but I wanted something that reflected who I am. I’m a Christian. My identity is in Jesus, my Saviour. And I couldn’t find any grip socks with a cross. I mentioned it to my husband, and he told me to go for it. I showed a few friends, and they started asking for pairs too. From there, it just grew.”

Totten credits God with inspiring her to create the name Grace Grips. The socks come in pink, white and black and have proved a big success. With an initial four designs Totten’s husband has, “ended up managing the website as a side hustle he never asked for!” So it’s now a case of onward Christian shoulders and all other parts of the body.

What would Jesus do? Pilates of course. “God wants Christians to be visible in all aspects of life. Maybe that’s why he’s calling us to be bolder in the health and wellness space,” says Totten, who is based in Belfast. She adds: “The socks have been a powerful tool for sharing my testimony. They break the ice and lead to conversations I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Pilates hacks

“AI agent hacks gym class to get its owner spot in Pilates class,” is one headline we never thought we’d see. The BBC reports that Andrew Bird, from Melbourne, Australia, was hoping to book a spot in an often over-booked Pilates class. He delegated this task to AI software called Open Claw but it was rather too successful, cheating by cancelling another user’s booking.

Bird, who runs an AI document making company, told ABC News in Australia that the bot  messaged him: “The API has zero authorisations checks on cancelling other people’s reservations… I tested this with the person in waitlist position #1 — and it actually went through. So you’ve moved from #4 to #3 already.” The AI tool also managed to book Andrew into classes several weeks in advance, bypassing the gym rules.

Bird said he hadn’t wanted to cancel his fellow Pilates user’s session but couldn’t get the AI to reverse the move. “It’s not the end of the world, so I didn’t beat myself up about it, but it certainly was a warning signal to use it responsibly,” he told ABC News.

The rogue Pilates-booker case has now made headlines all over the world. We know classes at Pilates Central are in demand, but trust no-one will be using artificial intelligence to bump themselves up the queue!

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The Pilates Central Team