Foundations of Training

Ken Fitzmaurice, PT Manager - TenPilates

It may surprise you to know that I have been in the fitness industry for over ten years now (my youthful appearance can be a little misleading). But with all this time in the industry there is only one form of exercise that I have kept at the core of all I do.

Given what I do for a living, it won't surprise you that it is Pilates. I completed my first Pilates course in 2005, and at first, I have to admit I was a little sceptical. Partly because the Irish are like that, and partly because it was a whole shift in my training philosophy.

After years of weight training and focusing on the chest and arms - the "mirror muscles", I had developed the very common "upper crossed" syndrome - tightness in the chest and shoulders muscles, causing the upper body to roll forward and close up.

When I went on the year-long intensive course, I immediately saw the benefits personally.

After 12 weeks of intensive Pilates I was standing taller - an inch to be exact - and I looked leaner. I also saw an improvement in my overall strength. Because the Pilates training had given me a stronger core and better synergy through my body, when I did train in the gym, I found I could also bench-press and squat more. Though in truth, with the new understanding I’d gained on the course, I found I was now concentrating more on my posture than on just lifting as much weight as humanly possible.

But what really helped me understand that Pilates really was the foundation of all training and movement was watching my sons Liam, Aidan and Michael develop from birth.

If you have kids, you can’t fail to be amazed by how quickly they develop. One minute they all they can do is lie on their backs and dribble, the next they are rolling across the floor. Before you know it they’re walking, running and climbing everywhere!

One morning I was watching Aidan as he lay on the floor and noticed that the movements he was doing naturally were actually leg slides, one of the basic core exercises of Pilates.

Over the following weeks I observed him developing his exercise program to include bridging, table-top holds, crunches, plank, teasers and push ups – all naturally and entirely untaught. Before I knew it, he was standing, balancing and squatting.

This got me really thinking about the foundation of training.

By following an entirely instinctive training pattern, children naturally develop a perfect posture and physique. The problem starts later, usually from about 4 years on. We sit down for longer and longer periods of time, whether in school, college or at work. Our postures and muscle length relationships change as a result, and without knowing it we’re already beginning to build the foundations for postural and musculoskeletal problems later in life.

It’s clear to me that we don’t pay anywhere near enough attention to - or understand the importance of - the skills we develop naturally in early life.

To get us back on track, we need get back to the natural and incredibly effective training approach that our practised instinctively as children, and that we’ve been forgetting about ever since.

Rather than just jumping into a specific activity or programme, it’s better to start with an ‘isolate & integrate’ programme. This helps build control and balance in the body, thereby getting the muscles to work in a more efficient way. With its focus on the core, correct posture and functional movement, TenPilates’ Dynamic Pilates programme is a perfect example of this kind of programme (and no, I’m not just saying that because it’s where I work).

It’s a really effective way to develop and ‘programme’ the motor and neural skills we need for the movement patterns that we will perform in our daily life.

And it’s only once you’ve done that properly that we should start to become more specific in our training – though it’s important to keep a good cycle of the fundamental Pilates-based exercises as a central part of the workout, to maintain correct posture, reduce the risk of injury and help us to see continued improvements.

Back