Thanks for tuning in to this podcast from Body and Soul called healthy Ish. I hope you're having a fantastic day, a healthy day. I am the host of Felicity Harley. I'm joined today by Ava Rodrigris.
Now.
She has a plethora of qualifications ranging from joint mobility Specialist, comprehensive Pilarates manual therapy, and Level four strength and conditioning coach. She's actually a Pilarates educator and she's worried about the one size fits all Polarti's studio approach. She discusses that today and shares her advice on how you can find the correct class for your body's needs. Listening to Extra Healthy Ish, a big sister podcast where she talks about
the importance of mobility for longevity. You can search for that one where you get you podcasts. Ava, welcome to healthy Ish.
Thank you so much for having me. It's very nice to be here.
Yeah, nice to have you here. Finally, we've taken a few attempts to get you here. But before we kick off, remind us of the benefits of polarates. I mean, this is your passion, why is it so good for us? So?
As a movement specialist. Obviously my love started with clinical pilatas back in London. And the reason pilatas is so beneficial, it's because it's a mind and body practice. So it stops you in your tracks and makes you actually think about what's occurring during movement and that sets a very good foundation for anything else that you want to do.
That's a great description actually, because you're right. I mean, you know, I'm not a I have done platies, I'm not a plartess lover. I'm or a yoga person. But it's you feel it in your body and your mind when you walk out of a pilates class.
Absolutely, it's a lifestyle. Hans why he almost has a cult following.
Yeah, I wouldn't say almost. I think it does. What do you love about polarates.
For me is it sets the tone for every other movement in the sense of understanding. So we talk a
lot about in fitness about format technique. Now having a multifaceted background, I am going to say this, your format technique at the end of the day is going to be dependent on the movement variability that you spend time earning, which is entirely different from pilatus But what polatus does is that it makes you think about the action from A to B, so your execution is more mindful and therefore you can stop yourself in your tracks when if you say you're in the gym and your load is
too high, then you know, I'm not ready for this load. Yet let me drop it a little bit, maybe add more volume to not break down down the line. Because I think in training what happens is that we go hard, we go fast, and we don't understand that because for most of us, the gym becomes our sport. Unless you're an athlete, the gym becomes your sport. The studio becomes your sport. Therefore, you want to have longevity in it. If you don't have longevity in it, how do you
have the chance to stay functional. So sometimes you have to regress in order to progress. And that's where pilatus comes in and it teaches you those things very mindfully if you're trained well.
And that's the case, isn't it if you're trained well Because there are so many studios around now and so many people and so many online studios and places that you can go to do pilates, and you have a bit of a problem with this kind of one size or fits approach. Talk to us about this.
Look in terms of understand if you come from the standpoint of biomechanics and physiology, you will never get as much out of a program as you would do if it's individually tailored to your need. When there is a group session, it is impossible. No matter who you are, how long you've been in the industry, you can't cater to ten people ten people different people's problems.
You don't know them all. If you don't know them, are absolutely even know the people turning up to your class a lot of the time.
Absolutely, But also you only have that hour forty five minutes to make it flow because there will be a next forty five minute set right. So by default in plazas we have the luxury of having modifications and props. But nevertheless we cannot fool ourselves to think that is only enough. And like you said, everybody and their mom and their dog is now because of social media. Social media is amazing, right, This is why I get to travel twelve times a year and certify people. So I
love it. I've made good friends through it. But also the downside of it is that fitness is filled with passionate people with the good will, but often lack enough knowledge because we don't have a baseline that we need to know to set a baseline standard. Therefore, you can get anything and everything. And it's very hard as a consumer to know who is educated when it's not your expertise. I just need to throw two anatomical words and you're gonna go, oh, she knows, she knows her stuff, right.
And the other thing that I want to say is that people often base a good class on a sensations that they were told they should feel like, oh my god, it was so challenging, so I crawled out of class. I sweat that it was fun and Dwarfels are high, therefore it was a good class. And I can't walk the next day, and I can't walk the next day. But if you again fall back on anatomy physiology, which science is a beautiful thing, can almost almost never lead
you wrong. Depends on the interpretation, because that comes into play too, is the fact that you want to spend more time building than repairing. There's always repairing involved, but if you cannot walk for a day or a week, you need to put that into question.
I mean, there was some chatter in Australia last y for regulation around the plates industry because there is none, Right, what would you like to see happen?
So I would like to see because I'm a continued education provider. So I think it starts all the way from the educators because what we promise needs to be spot on correct, and we need to have someone that supervise us. We need to have a baseline that we need to provide no matter the discipline. But do you love yoga or pilatus? This and the end of the day's movement. The anatomy of the human body is the same.
So unless you and I'm gonna go to bed, wake up tomorrow and grow wings out of our scalpela, the anatomy is the same. Your shoulder, my shoulder, your hip, my hip needs to be doing the same thing. The question is why isn't it and how can we create a program that can get us there safely but also efficiently, because when I'm getting younger, we are going.
That direction right absolutely, So for people listening, I mean, you know they'd love obviously it'd be great to have a regulatory body, et cetera, et cetera. That's probably in the future. What can we do today about making sure our studio, our class, our structure, our instructor is informed, well educated and teaching well. Not a harmful version of polarates, a helpful version of polartates.
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. Is a twofold question because number one side is the instructor's own responsibility to make sure that she is always learning. Now, the problem with that is that no matter what you learn, because under the umbrella, if I'm learning something new, but everything learning, is your learning more value for you to understand the human body more? Or are you only spending time learning choreography? Big difference, And sometimes people misunderstand this.
They go, but when I learned this choreography, they also taught me anatomically what's happening. Sure, they did not the same as understanding the intricate details of biomechanics. So if you're not taking anything that has a root in science and actually bringing it into your choreography, you will never hit your mark properly. I see it all the time when I travel. Yeah, and this is why I do what I do. The other part of that is, as a consumer, you cannot only base what you like in
an instructor on feel Feelings can steer you wrong. Of course, you need to be feeling good after what you do. But if you have a nagging neck pain twenty four hours later, it might not be the instruction. It might be that the class is not suitable for you. So you also need to bear a responsibility of doing your due diligence. But unfortunately, studying is time consuming and it's also difficult, and we also have a lot of people that does this as a side gig. This is not
a side hustle. There is science behind this. There is vast anatomy that goes into this. You don't want to just teach someone something and then go you're going to feel better.
So as a consumer, we should check qualifications hundred percent, check in with how your results your results, Yeah, not just how I mean the feeling. Still, you still need to connect with the science.
But it can't be your only biomarker. That's what I want to say. It is a biomarker, but it's not the only biomarker because how do you measure europe parent? So am I how do we measure success through results? Right? If you haven't had results in terms of that you visibly can see it or actually feel it as you're moving right, then are you spending your time well? Like my husband says, where do you want to shoot your bullets? Right? Because you only get some and.
It's not just time, it is also money. AVA lovely having you on healthy Ish, Thank.
You, thank you so much, thank you well.
I think when it comes to pilates or yoga or any any class we do asking questions, asking for help, I don't know. Do you ask for help? I don't, And perhaps with something we can all get better at, to help us get better at whatever fitness class or fitness interest we are undertaking. I hope you didn't enjoy this chat. If you did, tell us rate and review
this episode, or of course, subscribe to this podcast. Anything else, head to body insoul dot com, dot you for us on socials, grob Our print edition which is ourn you local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, stay healthy