Count me in! I love my pilates tapes but I can't give up my walk/jog so I will shoot for 3 times a week for pilates and will measure (ugh!) tomorrow. Great idea!

oh yah, i need to go buy a tape measure. I'll have to do that tonight. What's the correct way to measure?!

Found this on a site representing fitness expert Kathy Smith! Hope it helps!

ATaking your measurements is an excellent way to keep track of your changing shape as you get fit. When you burn fat and increase your muscle mass, you may weigh a bit more even though your body is getting tighter and smaller. Here is how you take 10 different body measurements. Remember to keep your muscles relaxed while you're measuring.

1. Bust: Don't squish yourself -- measure all the way around your bust and back right at your nipple line, and make sure the tape measure is not lower.

2. Chest: Measure under your breasts but as high up as you can go, keeping the tape measure parallel to this line when you reach it around your back.

3. Waist: Measure wherever it is the smallest (if you have "no waist" go around yourself right at the navel line).

4. Hips: Measure at the very biggest part -- even if that is so low that you are almost on the top of your thighs.

5. Midway: Measure midway between the very biggest part of your hips and your waist.

6. Thighs: Measure wherever they are the biggest.

7. Knees: Measure right above the knee.

8. Calves: Measure wherever they are the biggest.

9. Upper arm: Measure wherever they are biggest above your elbows.

10. Forearms: Measure wherever they are biggest below your elbows.

Remeasure yourself every couple of months. It may seem discouraging to see your measurements when you start a diet plan, but once your begin to see results, the feeling of accomplishment is wonderful. Even if you have been on a program for a while, it's not too late -- it is great to watch your body continue to change.

Get your tape measure and get started now!

I bought my Winsor Pilates about 4 or 5 months ago. I did it diligently for two weeks and then gave up for some reason. But now that I am LC again and there is this challenge I think I could get with it again. Maybe it will even help with my stall.

WOOHOO...I am so pleased that there are a heap of us doing this challenge together!..The more the merrier
MissScruff...you are indeed a wealth of information, I think you'll be our nominated technical consultant!!!
So a big Welcome aboard everyone...lets morph and transform together!

I definitely have too much time on my hands! We are under a tornado warning and my son is house/dog sitting and so am just too worried about him to sleep! So, I am wandering around the internet! THe house he is at is along the path of the last tornado that went through a few years back!

Wow, thanks Miss scruffilufiguos haha, sorry, I just thought about Big Bird and Mr. Snuffilufigous. lol, I don't even know how to spell it!!

Thanks for the help on the measurements. I think we should all post them here, and then re measure in a month or so, to see if there has been any difference. I'm gonna measure tonight after I have my low carb, fart enducing low carb gummy bears I can't help it right now, but I'm doing fairly good. I also completed the 20 minute winsor workout, and I feel great! I was able to do the roll ups and the very last rolling move too! I'm excited.

Happy Pilates!

Well i just finished my 20 minute workout too...and this time i took the phone off the hook, sent the kids into another room to play and closed the doors!!!
Am I ever hot!!! Eskimissy..two questions here..did you work up a sweat? and did you legs start trembling as you lengthened them?!...I have to answer a yes to both questions!
I am very impressed if you could do "THE SEAL"..you know, the one where your hands grab your ankles, and you balance, bang feet together 3 x then roll back, bang 3 x and up...that was darned hard!!!
My body feels pleasantly relaxed at the moment,[ she quickly stops slouching over the keyboard, pulls her powerhouse in and sits up straight!] I think i might feel it tomorrow!!

I didn't work up a big sweat, but I did sweat. But my legs did tremble!! There's no way I can put them straight up! not uh, not yet I also felt like my insides were trembling, mainly around my tummy. Boy was it fun though. It goes by so fast too! If this does work, I'll be amazed. It almost seems too good to be true!

I sure hope fionaN doesn't mind my copy/pasting this over to this thread! It has answers to questions I had earlier! If I have over stepped the line by doing this then please forgive me! I just got so excited when I saw what you had written! I sure hope you join us because we can really use your expertise!


Sun, Oct-17-04, 03:57
fionaN

Pilates is great, provided it is taught right

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I have been doing Pilates for three years now, first to rehabilitate after a back injury, but now also to improve my shape.

But - some of the techniques are very difficult to learn and there are a lot of bad teachers out there. I think it might be even harder to learn from tapes. I thinkit is a wonderful technique, but I would like to offer some points that I have learned over the years that may help anyone starting out. So, here are my "rules" that I have learned through three years (three books, one video and about 8 teachers, some a lot better than others).

If you take a class, make sure that the teacher is a properly trained pilates teacher and not a gym instructor who has done a week's course.

If you use tapes, then get some books as well to get a different view point.

take it really slowly to start with and never never cheat to achieve a move.

principles while exercising-

- breathe out on the harder move, in on the easier move (or just to prepare to move)

- only use the musles you are meant to use - keep everything else relaxed.

- find out which musle you are meant to be using to achieve the move. If something else is working hard then you are not strong enough to do it and carrying on is counter productive. (examples of this - using your neck in crunches, or using your hamstrings when you should be using your glutes to lift your butt in "the bridge" (lie on back, legs bent, and curl up so that leg body angle is straight and weight is supported on upper back and feet)) A good tape or teacher will tell you where you should be feeling the exercise.

- four principles for abs exercises - and these are the key to getting a flat lower tummy,a nipped in waist and a rib cage that sits down and low rather than flared out like a barrel ( and you do see barrel tummies and barrel chests on people who haven't been doing it right for a long time).

-(a) keep your spine in neutral throughout the floor exercises. Do not press spine into floor. This is different from standard abs instruction.

-(b) the navel to spine connection. This one gave me so much trouble. I was on my fourth teacher before someone explained it to me in a way that I "got it". the standard instruction is to hollow your stomach so that your navel connects to your spine. Some imagery I have found helpful is to imagine a big gym ball coming down towards your stomach and, as gently as you can, you make room for it by hollowing out a space for it. Think about your hipbones moving apart from each other as you do this. Think about all these musles being on a dimmer switch so that you dial up the intenstiy as you load the muscles and you dial down the intensity on the way back.

If you put your fingers onto your lower belly, just inside the hollow of your hipbones, you should be able to feel your TA muscle tighten as you do this. This is the muscle that you need to work to flatten your lower belly.

This tecnique is not about tensing or gripping or tightening - it is about connecting, making room, almost stretching.


If you can see or sense your abs doming upwards as you exercise then you have lost the connection and should stop, rest, regain the connection before carrying on.

-(c) the hip to rib connection. I'm still struggling with this. As you prepare to do any exercise that uses your abs, find the connection between your hips and your ribs. The standard Pilates instruction or "cue" here is "soften your ribs" which I think is a totally useless instruction ( only bettered by the one described below). Here is how I do it - be aware that your rib cage wants to flare up (like when you take a big chest breath) maybe do one rep badly with your hands resting on your lower ribs so that you feel where your body is taking you. When you next breathe out, feel the connections straight down and diagonally down to your hip bones, as you draw your abs to your spine feel these lines (guy ropes?) tighten and strengthen, breathe in to prepare, keeping those connections strong, then when you breathe out to move, retain those connections.

(d) the pelvic floor connection. If you connect your TA muscle (step b) properly then your pelvic floor should also connect because of the way that bodies are connected. However, you can use imagery to reinforce the connection and make it stronger. This is the one step where instructors get really coy or embarrased. My worst example of this was one teacher whose voice suddenly dropped in volume as she said (I thought) "imagine you are stopping a wheel" So there I was trying to imagine a wheel and trying to stop it. Realised in class four that she was saying we should stop a "wee" (ie urination). So it was also a useless instrcution in the Pilates sense as it involved localised gripping and tensing, rather than connecting and tightening

Best instruction was really clear and just used medical language. Things come across differently in print than in the context of a class - so I will put dots so as not to offend. Instructor said "ladies, feel the connection by imaginining a line connecting your abdominal muscles to a point inside your v*g*n*, gentlemen feel the connection between your abdominal muscle and a point between your an*s and your t*st*s. Feel those connections and hold the connection as you do the exercise."

- final point - Pilates is not about seeing how many reps you can do, it is about seeing if you can do a single rep absolutely perfectly, only using the appropriate muscles, with the minimum degree of effort needed to keep perfect form. It can seem really boring at first because of the focus on getting the basics right, but I absolutely love it now.

Transversus abdominus. If you think of your belly like streaky bacon (same structures, different mammal) you can imagine the different layers of muscle.

Rectus abdominus = six pack muscle - is closest to the skin and fibres run head to foot. External obliques are next and run diagonnally. Then internal obliques which run diagonnaly the other way. Finally, deepest of all is TA. It runs horizontally. In some people, with back injuries particularly, it can switch off. Pilates has techniques that are pretty good for getting it to fire up again. A properly functioning TA will improve posture, flatten your lower stomach and really really help to support an injured spine.


I'm not a Pilates teacher, but I would be happy to try to answer any questions about it on this board.

I just saw where Kiwigal asked about copying the info over to this thread. Hope I didn't cause any problems! I just get so excited about stuff and jump before I think!

http://exercise.about.com/cs/abs/l/blyogapilates.htm
http://www.pilates-studio.com/forum/
http://www.greenberries.com/
http://www.pilatesconnections.com/wforum/index.php
http://www.pilates-news.org/


This one had some great animations on how to do some of the moves!

http://msnwomen.more.com/more/categ...ses_Pilates.xml

It's impossible for me to do it everyday, my body needs to recover.. Yes, I get a good sweat going, and I can do pretty much most of them, the ones I can't do, I do a modified version. If I can't do as many repititions as the instructor on the tape, I don't do every one of them that is being done.

I don't over do it, but if i really like what i'm doing, i'll stop the tape and do more repititions.

I bought my mat at a garage sale. I got all my tapes at garage sales, and the other's I check out at the library. There are a lot of great ones out there.
On the winsor DVD, they have a 20 min workout, and a 50 minute sculpting one. I do one~~ one day, and the other another day.

Also.... on the oxygen channel is a man that has a progressive yoga show, it's an hour, with commercials. I've taped a few of his shows and will use his tapes as well..

I feel it's important to have different instructors, different tapes, because, not all of them do the same moves. That way, you learn different moves, find the ones that you really enjoy doing, and then one afternoon when you're alone, put on some great mood music and start doing your own thing, and before you know it, you've done an hour of yoga/pilates.

I did that yesterday, and all the twisting i did of the spine, i'm really sore this morning, and not sure if i'll be able to get down on the floor today and do more. We'll see how my body feels.. But yes.. I get a very good sweat going.

P.S. If any of you happen to have cable/dish with the music choices? There is a great music channel called "seascapes." it is perfect for yoga and pilates. And another one called, "sounds of the seasons." Both of these are excellent to close your brain off, and let you exercise at length.

Good luck.. I'm here!

I can't straighten my legs all the way cause the pain kicks in, hahahaha. I do my Pilates every morning M-F around 5:30-6 am for 20 minutes. I prefer to do my Yoga for 20 minutes first to loosen me up. I have never been one for having balance or long lean muscle for that matter, sooooo off I go in search for the perfect method for not rolling off the mat into the livingroom table .. Geesh Im a clutz. Hope you ladies have a good workout today .

Angel

Good Morning!

I'm off for my first attempt at Pilates. Wish me luck. I'm about as uncoordinated as they come. In fact I'm famous for walking into walls and those darned signs they put in the middle of the department store aisles at the mall. Who's idea was that anyway?! Heaven forbid there are any in close range of a shoe store. I am sure to knock myself out ~ always looking where I've been instead of where I'm going.

Hope you all have a great day!
~Christy~