Pilates Biz – Profit With Pilates is a six week online course.

Million dollar Health Professional – Paul Wright, Physiotherapist offers this profit club program.

About Always Pilates
We provide online Pilates exercises, classes, workouts, and workshops so you can exercise any time, wherever you are — at home, at work, on the move. Our service is great if you can’t attend studio classes, are travelling, have little time.

Sign up and get unlimited access to a large selection of quality HD Pilates videos, streamed to you for only NZD$20/month. New videos added regularly.

What makes us different to other providers

1. Expert Australasian Pilates instructors — very experienced, highly qualified, highly regarded.

2. One-to-one instruction (instructor demonstrates exercises and movements using one model) for all classes (including mat).

3. Instruction is close-up and focused — no distractions from other movement or views inside or outside a studio.

4. Close-up views and one-to-one instruction ensures you get the best teaching so you are more likely to:
a. do movements yourself correctly
b. see more ongoing, lasting benefits of exercising.
Exercising incorrectly may cause injury — this is more likely to happen with distant camera views and large classes with some participants exercising incorrectly.

5. Instruction feels personal — not one of many in a class.

6. All videos are for personal users — we do not provide instructor training.

7. Easy-to-use website:
a. Contains detailed, easy-to-follow information to help you make the most of our online Pilates classes, eg:
• how to set up your exercise space
• introduction to our foundation exercises (also called pre-Pilates or preparatory exercises) that you need to master before you start Pilates
• details and videos about how to choose your Pilates level and monitor your progress
• how to do Pilates if you have a delicate body (eg are pregnant or have recently had a baby, or have tight hamstrings, tender wrists or knees)
• tips on how to get the maximum benefit from doing Pilates online
• lots of extra guidance about exercise and using our website in the support section and on the blog.
b. Great features — ability to:
• save videos to favourites file
• set up a Pilates workout queue or programme of exercises and classes you can do over time.

8. Community focus
a. Social responsibility: We want to make a difference where we can.
Our first project is supporting a group of Wellington Habitat for Humanity volunteers build houses for a community of single mothers in Nepal. The project will also help set up a spice-grinding business in the community.
• Always Pilates is making a video documentary about the project. We will also be providing Pilates classes to the volunteers to help strengthen and prepare their bodies to do the heavy work involved.
• We will be making short, functional training class videos for the website using project volunteers. Functional training uses exercises that mimic and develop the way your body moves in your activity so that you can perform actions more easily.
For example, our volunteers will be doing a lot of heavy lifting, so one of our class videos will focus on how to strengthen and prepare their bodies so they can do this activity effectively and safely.
• Excerpts from these videos will be available free on our You Tube channel, which is presently being developed.
• We have two main aims for this project:
o to help and support a highly worthwhile mission
o to show how Pilates can help prepare your body to do everyday activities or extend it to perform unfamiliar or more stressful tasks.
b. Dedicated Facebook following. We like to build a loyal community around our business, where people can share Pilates experiences.

Great value — only NZD$20/month (cheaper than other providers), free 15-day trial.

Here are a selection of resources that are worth your time, some research, a questionable exercise and a nice simple shoulder massage –

The Sports Physio on the Upper Traps
“But what about those studies suggesting that we need less UT activation compared to MT or LT such as the work done by Ann Cools et al 2007. ”
The delicate balance in working with the shoulder girdle.
“Truly well-meaning instructors taught you to teach compression rather than dynamic stability. Compression is absolutely one form of stabilization and strength, but it limits mobility and can de remarkable destructive to joints and all that run through and around them.”

And then there’s this, which I am not so sure about….
Shoulder Blade Squeeze
Begin this exercise standing or sitting with your back straight. Your chin should be tucked in slightly and your shoulders should be back slightly. Slowly squeeze your shoulder blades together as hard and far as possible provided it is pain free (figure 1). Hold for 5 seconds and repeat 10 times.

IDEA Fit Tips, Volume 10, Number 9
September 2012
Author Jill Miller.

Core: Focus on the diaphragm for improved abdominal strength and power.
The definition of core work varies from format to format and means different things to different people. My own perspective has evolved over 28 years of yoga, running, dancing, Pilates, shiatsu massage, cadaver dissection and opera singing. Of all the core muscles, the respiratory diaphragm seems to be the most underutilized. While the value of spinal muscles, abdominal layers and back muscles are acknowledged and incorporated into formats like Pilates, GYROTONIC® and even kettlebell training, deep diaphragmatic exercises are relegated to rare yoga techniques and progressive vocal training. This is a major oversight.

Destination: Diaphragm
Your primary breathing muscle is a lead player in maintaining whole-body health from the inside out. The diaphragm is not just designed to help you breathe; it tethers into the psoas and quadratus lumborum; lines the lower six ribs; serves as a soft-tissue platform for the heart; and is seamed together in the same fascial layer as the transverse abdominals (Hedley 2005–2009). The respiratory diaphragm is a barometer for the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems; is the governing muscle of breath; and is a physiological key for the nervous system. Shallow diaphragmatic breathing excites the body; deep diaphragmatic breathing relaxes and sedates the body. The diaphragm (and the nervous system) needs to be able to do both for health, restoration and optimal performance.

If the diaphragm’s attachments to the ribs, psoas and quadratus lumborum aren’t regularly stretched and relaxed, it can knock the wind out of your performance. The exercises that follow unkink this innermost layer from the inside out. Your spine will feel more supported, and you’ll have a better chance to improve abdominal power.

Balls on Upper Back
Lie on back and place two rubber balls (tennis balls are okay) along side of spine in upper-back region. Breathe slowly into ribs, rock from side to side and allow balls to massage rib joints. Spend 1–2 minutes on left side of spine, switch sides, move balls into lower thoracic spine and ribs, and repeat.

This exercise frees up intercostal tension; mobilizes the rib joints and posterior diaphragm rib connections; and massages the deep back musculature.

Abdominal Massage With Sponge Ball
Place soft, inflatable sponge ball directly underneath navel. Using diaphragmatic breathing, breathe directly into ball while relaxing entire body. For 3–5 minutes, slowly shift from side to side to massage multiple abdominal layers.

This exercise familiarizes you with abdominal muscle tension, aids in stretching scar tissue and encourages the tough rectus sheath fascia to stretch. It also promotes core elasticity rather than rigidity and can alleviate low-back pain by encouraging length in the transverse abdominals and obliques. Caution: People who have inguinal hernias should not try this exercise.

Bridge Lifts With Abdominal Vacuum
Step 1. Lie on back with feet about 18 inches apart, knees bent, toes pointing forward, palms flat on ground; inhale.

Step 2. Continue to inhale slowly as hips and spine float off floor. Arms synchronize with breath and slowly arc overhead to touch floor when lungs are completely full.

Step 3. Rapidly exhale through nose until there is no breath left. Do not breathe in! Soften gut area and allow it to cave inward and upward, “sticking” to bottom of lungs.

Step 4 (the vacuum). Without breathing in, lower spine slowly to ground and feel suction of dome-shaped diaphragm creating internal plunger-like action in guts. If you do this correctly, you’ll feel suction in your throat, too.

Step 5 (the reset). Once pelvis is back on floor, reset arms and repeat steps 1–5; do 10–15 rounds.

This exercise helps you differentiate the specific stretch of the respiratory diaphragm and feel its relationship to its bony and myofascial attachments. Over time the exercise progressively and deeply stretches the diaphragm so that it becomes more functionally accessible. Bridge lifts also help create traction in the lower back, lengthening the individual vertebrae away from one another and decompressing the disks and spine.