General Fitness

When we are faced with a stressful situation, our sympathetic nervous system sends a surge of hormones through our body, which makes our heart pump faster, our breathing quicken and blood to rush our muscles. This is called the ‘fight-or-flight’ response and is designed to help us fight or flee a threat. Once the threat has passed, another division of our nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, sets off the ‘rest and digest’ response, which returns the body to its normal resting and relaxed state. However, when we experience stress over a long period of time, our sympathetic nervous system is continually activated and this takes a toll on the body both physically and mentally.

Over the last few months, many of us have experienced, and continue to experience, high levels of stress-related to COVID-19. One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce stress is through breathing exercises. By breathing slowly and deeply, we tell our nervous system that it is time to calm down. The amazing thing about the breath is that it is always present. Wherever we are, if thoughts and worries start to overwhelm us, we can take a moment to focus on our breathing. There are many different techniques you can use. Try the ones listed below and use whichever exercise works best for you.

Get into a comfortable position, either in a chair or sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. Try to keep your back straight so it is easier to breathe properly. Gently close your eyes and settle into your posture.

 

 

 

• Following Your Breath 

Breathe naturally. Try to follow the breath all the way in and out. Feel the air passing through your nose, your belly slightly rising and your chest expanding. Pick one spot where you can feel the breath the most and focus on this spot. Try to feel every breath that comes in and every breath that comes out. You may find as you try to focus on your breathing, your mind gets lost in thought. This is completely normal. Whenever it does, just gently bring your attention back to your breathing.

 

• Diaphragmatic Breathing 

This exercise is best done lying on your back. Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. Breathe in deeply through your nose and direct your breath into your belly so the hand on your belly rises up. The hand on your chest should remain relatively still. Then breathe out through your mouth, empty your belly completely and feel the hand on your belly fall.

 

• Exhale > Inhale 

For this exercise, take 2 counts to breathe in and 4 counts to breathe out. If this breath feels too short, try increasing to 4 counts in and 6 counts out. Don’t push yourself to make your breaths as long as possible as this will only create more anxiety. The most important thing is that the exhale is longer than the inhale in order to promote the parasympathetic relaxation response.

 

After spending a few minutes on these breathing exercises, you should walk away feeling much calmer.

 

Christmas is a special (and often busy) time of year. However, it can also be a time when people seek treatment for injuries, whether it’s a sprained ankle from wearing high heels for five hours at a Christmas party, a dodgy neck from laying on the couch watching the Boxing Day Test, or even the niggly back or knees from playing with the grandkids on the floor.  Christmas puts us out of our ‘normal’ routine, which can be great, especially if your body is ready to adapt to changes.

Here are 8 tips to help you stay injury-free during this time.

1. Keep active: It’s important that we stay active for our physical and mental health.  This may mean sticking to your usual routine or mixing it up. Christmas can be a great time to get out on the bike with the kids/grandkids or go for a hike.
2. Don’t ignore pain: Whether you have injured yourself over the break or have been putting up with lingering pain that you’ve been too busy to address, the Christmas break can provide an opportunity to get your body pain-free and in top shape for the new year ahead.  Our Osteopath, Physiotherapists and Myotherapist can help get you on the right path to recovery.
3. Ease into new exercise routines: Around the new year, many of us get a boost of enthusiasm to start a new exercise plan, which is a great idea.  Going from little or no activity to running five times a week and hitting the gym every other day can be a shock to our bodies, which may struggle to cope with a rapid escalation in activity, and can increase the risk of injury.  To help avoid injury, try building up to your new routine over a number of weeks.
4. Avoid sitting for long periods: After a big year, everyone loves taking a break, but it’s important to remember that our bodies are not designed to sit on the couch all day. Getting up every 60 minutes to stretch your legs is a good first step toward minimising the chance of injury.
5. Do things you enjoy: Decreasing stress and increasing endorphins (by doing things that make you happy) can change how frequently pain is experienced, so making sure you have time to take it easy and do the things you enjoy is important to your wellbeing.
6. Get in the pool: swimming is a great low impact way to keep moving, not to mention a great way to beat the Brisbane summer heat!
7. Give a fitness gift: Fitness trackers are a great gift idea, as is any sporting equipment that will help keep you and your family moving well and keeping active. The Body Refinery as also developed an online Pilates Studio for you to practice your Pilates anytime, anywhere! More information on www.thebodyrefineryonline.com
8. Indulge in a massage: During the festive season, don’t forget to take the time to look after yourself by setting aside an hour to just relax and unwind – this could be the break you need this silly season.

From all of us here at The Body Refinery we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Written by Susan Cottrell

 

The Body Refinery has been my baby for 12 years now. I bought the business in July 2007, when it was a small, but successful, Pilates studio with 4 part-time staff and operating hours of less than 35 hours per week. Now, as we reach the Studio’s 12th anniversary, I am incredibly proud to say we have 27 team members, we offer Pilates, physiotherapy, myotherapy, exercise physiology and remedial massage and are open for business about 74 hours a week.

I bought the business for many reasons, one of which was that I loved (and still do love) Pilates and the benefits it provides for overall wellness. Being a physiotherapist, remedial massage therapist, and Pilates teacher, I wanted to create a business that took people from pain to performance with Pilates at the core (pardon the pun) of that model. The Body Refinery now proudly offers services have taken hundreds of clients from pain to performance and helped many more to achieve their specific health and movement goals, which were even better able to do, following the introduction of Exercise Physiology to the list of services provided earlier this year.

The Body Refinery incorporates Pilates-informed exercises into physiotherapy to rehabilitate clients who are injured or experiencing pain. Once pain has been reduced or minimised, Pilates is often an ideal form of movement and exercise to help clients safely and efficiently return to peak performance in their daily activities and/or sport, whether that involves walking to the shops, picking up their child, playing a round of golf, climbing a mountain or completing a triathlon. Once returned to the activity of choice clients, can use our fitness-based classes to maintain their performance or add exercise physiology sessions into their routine to take their performance to the next level.

 

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Over the last few months, there has been a lot of discussion about the decision by all health funds to remove Pilates from their list of claimable health treatments, regardless of the qualification of the person taking the class. This will be effective from 1 April 2019.

The Australian Pilates Method Association (APMA) and Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) have each written statements using language that has caused division between some Pilates teachers and physiotherapists who teach Pilates.

Physiotherapy and Pilates are very complementary to one another, and many physiotherapists also undertake training to become Pilates teachers. As both a physiotherapist and a Pilates teacher, with memberships to both the APA and the Pilates Alliance Australasia (PAA), I am torn on how to react.

 

The more I thought about it, I realised that there were bigger issues in play:

1. Opting for “extras” cover increases your premiums, so it makes sense to want to make the most of it when it comes to claiming on health services.  However, I believe that this can be counterproductive when one’s approach to their own health is predominantly guided by what reimbursements they will receive from their health fund.  Health is important. You physiotherapist / dentist / optometrist / naturopath should be visited when you feel it is required… not just until your extras cover runs out for the year. Seeking healthcare treatment as you require it not only helps to keep your body in top form, it can also helps to ensure that any issues are addressed before your health starts deteriorating.  For example, when you invest in good physiotherapy treatment, your reward will be reduced pain and improved movement, which will benefit how you feel everyday, as well as your performance in physical activity.  
2. Australia was identified as having the most efficient universal health care system of all the OECD countries, but this efficiency has come at a cost – namely that there are tight fiscal controls over what health treatments are covered by (or can be claimed from) Medicare and our private health insurance system. Everything is measured against an economic standard, rather than a quality of life standard.  As a result, health care providers in Australia are under increasing pressure from large economic structures, such as insurance companies, to provide “efficiencies that meet a short-term measurable outcome” rather than long-term outcomes. 
3. When someone attends a Pilates session in Australia, they should have confidence in the instructor who is teaching them.  At present, there are no regulations defining the standard of training and experience that someone must have before they can call themselves a Pilates instructor or teacher.  I believe that regardless of whether that teacher has previous training in physiotherapy, exercise physiology, dance, or has recently decided to ditch their office job to work as a Pilates instructor, there should be tighter industry regulations regarding what standards must be met before someone can call themselves a Pilates instructor or teacher. This will help ensure that Pilates is only taught by people who have sufficient experience in how to teach Pilates safely and in accordance with the method, as created by Joseph Pilates.  Many people are surprised when they find out that some “Pilates instructors” have merely undertaken a weekend course. To properly understand the Pilates method and teach it safely, I believe that someone should only be allowed to call themselves a Pilates teacher once they have attained a comprehensive certification or recognised diploma-level qualification, which is typically an 18 month course that incorporates over 270 hours of practical learning along with many hours or work experience and observation.

The removal of Pilates as a claimable item is another example of health funds reducing the benefits that their members receive for the premiums they pay.

It also led me to contemplate why anyone would want a large profit-driven company guiding how they manage their own health? I believe that as a society, we need to shift our views on health and illness-prevention, starting with a rethink on the ingrained idea of only seeking healthcare or treatments where we can get money back. Everyone loves a bargain, but our health is all we have, and I believe that many people fall into the mindset that if they are receiving treatment from a healthcare professional, it’s “the norm” to receive a reimbursement when they pay for the service.

I strongly believe that anyone seeking healthcare should base their decision on the quality of the care they are receiving, and not limit themselves to seeing only those providers who facilitate a reimbursement of part of their fee.  Some people become so focused on claiming from their health fund that – if it means paying no “gap” – they will choose to see a mediocre healthcare provider rather than their own preferred healthcare provider.  Quality matters! One good physiotherapy treatment can be more beneficial than ten mediocre ones (and that’s before even considering the damage that can be done from a substandard treatment).

I know the value of a good physiotherapy treatment because many years ago I (unfortunately, and thankfully only briefly) worked for a physiotherapy practice that was largely focused on how many clients could be squeezed in per hour, rather than the health outcomes of those clients. I’m glad to say that it drove me to create a business that puts client health as the highest priority. I have, and will continue to, sacrifice profit in order to provide the best client care, by hiring the best professionals* and by providing clients with true one-on-one physiotherapy appointments and limiting the size of Pilates classes, so that clients receive sufficient feedback from their teachers.

And I’m not alone. Many independently-owned physiotherapy, Pilates, and other healthcare practices put the health of their clients ahead of profits. That’s not to say that physiotherapists working in a health fund-owned or large conglomerate-owned practice don’t have their clients’ best interest at heart, but the operators of the business may have a different focus.

Experience and qualifications/training are important considerations when selecting your healthcare provider. A Pilates session taken by a Pilates teacher with 18 months’ training is likely to be superior to a Pilates session with a Physiotherapist who has done a weekend course.

Practices that place profit ahead of client care, may seek to cut costs by appointing novice health professionals to positions where they have little or no input from a mentor or senior supervisor. It is my view that there is no substitute for experience, and that even the best graduates need proper supervision in order to deliver proper care to clients and develop into exceptional healthcare professionals. Another example of profit-maximisation at the expense of client care is intentionally double- (or even triple-) booking clients, so that a physiotherapist must juggle clients, usually by leaving them for extended periods of time while they attend to one, or two, other clients who had bookings to see the same physiotherapist at the same time.

Most people who have extras cover through their health fund feel like they should only use providers that are approved by their health fund, so that they can claim part of the cost of the treatment. They’ve paid the health fund premiums, so why not make the most of what they can claim back? However, is this focus on cost-saving the right approach when it comes to health? When you weigh up the expense of the (seemingly ever-increasing) premiums against the claimable amount, is it actually cost-effective for you have extras cover? Also consider the value of your time – do you need to travel further to your health fund’s preferred provider?  Is their quality of service as good as a provider you would (if you didn’t have extras cover) otherwise seek out, based on recommendations from friends/colleagues? And if the quality of service isn’t as good, do you, therefore, require more appointments to reach your desired outcome?

Personally, when it comes to my (and my family’s) health, I want to choose the healthcare practice, and the individual professional, who looks after my spine / teeth / eyes.  

Many of my clients have come to us after experiencing very substandard treatment from a “preferred providers”, which they only went to for the sake of saving $7-$12. Everyone loves saving money where they can, but when it comes to healthcare it’s often the case that “you get what you pay for”.

The prevalence of health fund-owned healthcare providers and the health funds’ preferred providers is concerning; I would hate to imagine a future where my children can only see a healthcare professional that is either owned by or influenced by a health fund because all the passionate, independently-owned operators have been absorbed by health funds or run out of business. There will always be devoted healthcare individuals, because these people are passionate about working hard and ongoing learning, in order to provide the best client outcomes. However, I hope that there will always be equally passionate owners/employers who will support their dedicated team in achieving these client outcomes by only offering 1-on-1, hands-on treatment, and by fostering an environment of ongoing learning through the attendance of courses and workshops.

Regarding the Pilates industry specifically, I think there should be a greater focus on regulation. There are so many people (physiotherapists and instructors) calling themselves Pilates teachers after completing a weekend course. Even if someone is an excellent physiotherapist, exercise physiologist, personal trainer, ballet dancer or yoga instructor, I do not believe that the completion of a weekend Pilates course makes them a Pilates teacher. A weekend is not long enough to learn and experience the basics of Pilates.

Comprehensive training is essential for someone to become a Pilates teacher who can teach in an effective and safe manner. I would love to see the PAA and APMA work with the APA to properly regulate the Pilates industry. This could help to: define what qualifications are needed to be a Pilates instructor; help the public to better understand the Pilates method; and reduce the numbers of client injuries caused by “weekend course instructors” who advertise themselves as Pilates teachers. By working together to regulate the Pilates industry, the physiotherapist and Pilates industry bodies can both benefit… and more importantly ensure that clients receive the best care.

 

*Reference to Pilates instruction as a profession refers to Pilates instructors who are comprehensively trained or diploma qualified.

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Written by Susan Cottrell

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Starting Pilates or any new form of exercise can be daunting at the best of times, you’re not sure what you should bring, how early to arrive and all the rest. So to put your mind at ease here is a list of things you should know before attending your first Pilates class.

 

• Wear fitted/comfortable clothing – For an instructor, it is hard to see the body and it’s movement if you are wearing baggy or restricting clothes. It can also be a safety issue as loose clothing can get caught in the equipment. Keep in mind that your legs can also be in precarious positions so you probably don’t want everything on show! It is good to be conscious of these things when choosing the clothing you wear to a Pilates class.

 

• Wear socks – Socks are a must in a Pilates class, particularly in the equipment classes. This is for hygiene purposes, even though the equipment is wiped down regularly.

 

• Arrive early – It is common courtesy to arrive a few minutes early so the class is not disrupted if you arrive late. If you are new to the studio you will be asked to fill out a new client form so please arrive early enough in order to do this with plenty of time to spare!

 

• Hygiene – I know it seems like a no-brainer but some people perspire more than others so if you are one of those people you might like to bring a towel with you and some deodorant. Towels are not compulsory but if you would prefer to bring one you are more than welcome.

 

If you have any problems in the class please let the instructor know. At The Body Refinery, we are here to give the best Pilates experience possible so if we can make it better we would love to know! Please also keep in mind that we have clients who are at all different levels so don’t be discouraged if you see other people doing difficult exercises and you are on the basics.

Pilates is a practice and it takes some time to get to those harder exercises but it is exciting knowing that you can potentially work up to those intermediate and advanced exercises in time. Pilates is never boring and always a challenge!

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Have you been bitten by the running bug?

About to run the Bridge to Brisbane or training for a marathon? Or do you just love running for your regular dose of cardio? Whatever your goals are… you’re a runner!

Simply put, running involves a repetitive series of movements that often leads to muscle imbalances, namely overdeveloped hip flexors and weak gluteal muscles and hamstrings. Running is also high impact and can cause a lot of stress on your ankle, knee and hip joints. Injuries to these joints are common in those who run regularly and/or long distances, and covering more kilometres generally leads to more injuries.

When you take on a new challenge, like your first Bridge to Brisbane, you need to ensure that your training regime incorporates exercises that compliment running, and which build strength in the right muscles. Take a look at any online marathon training program and you can be sure it will include regular core stability and strength training.

 

The Runity program is the answer!

The Runity Running Program is a unique running technique training program developed to help people get back to running pain-free and achieve their running goals. Running is one of the most natural forms of movement for humans, however, many runners struggle with injuries that inhibit their ability to perform.

The physiotherapists at The Body Refinery work with the latest scientific knowledge and technology. Surrounded by a community of runners and movement professionals, they continually deepen their knowledge and understanding of running biomechanics.

The Runity Program involves a video analysis of your running technique and an exercise-based rehabilitation program to improve your running technique, cadence and tempo. You will learn about the running fundamentals in order to improve your technique, which will make you run more efficiently and biomechanically safer.

 

Pilates can help too!

Pilates offers a massive repertoire of exercises that focus on pelvic stability, movement control and motor awareness. Since all of the major muscles of running attach to the pelvis, it makes sense that having a stable (pelvis) core will optimise the efficiency and power output of these muscles and lead to better performance.

Moreover, performing Pilates exercises in standing and running positions facilitates maximal carryover to your running stride. Learning how your body should look and feel in standing position, and during movement, is the first step to improving your running technique and enhancing your performance.

For the runner, Pilates has the added benefits of improving balance, and optimising hamstring and calf length, thus enhancing foot and ankle stability.

The Pilates exercises that are most appropriate for you will largely depend on what you are trying to achieve, so appropriate exercises can be selected to: help manage/rehabilitate an existing running injury and/or to improve performance.

 

So if you are preparing for the Bridge to Brisbane, or a similar event (Gold Coast Marathon) , and you want to get to that start line in peak condition (and injury free), Pilates can help you get there!

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Join The Body Refinery and let Pilates help you reach your goals!

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