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360. Nathan Ross Rees interviews Raph
Episode 360 • 17th May 2026 • Pilates Elephants • Raphael Bender
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This is my conversation with Nathan on his podcast, which you'll probably love if you like Pilates Elephants.

Nathan's podcast is her: https://open.spotify.com/show/24md12qTQmTIYULyzGXmzT

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Transcripts

::

Welcome to another episode of Pilates Elephants. I'm Raphael Bender.

::

Today I have a special episode for you. This is a conversation I recently had

::

with Nathan Ross-Reese on his podcast, The Nathan Ross-Reese Reformer Podcast.

::

I highly recommend Nathan's podcast. If you like this podcast,

::

you're probably already a listener, but just in case you're not,

::

you should definitely check it out and I'll put a link in the show notes.

::

Anyway, without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Nathan Ross-Reese.

::

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Nathan Ross-Reese Reformer Podcast.

::

Today we've got Raf back again, the wise and wonderful Raf.

::

He's bringing the heavy artillery destroying dogma in the Pilates industry and

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it's always a pleasure to have you on mate, thanks for coming back.

::

It's always a pleasure to talk with you Nathan. Thank you.

::

So I've been a massive fan of the posts I've been putting out lately,

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loving the content loving the conversation with the camera and the evidence

::

that you're bringing to kind of.

::

Bring light to areas which have been kind of in the dark a

::

little bit just assumptions that we've all had that sound fine

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that sound good but in reality this don't add up um

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so i did a

::

little bit of a search back through probably the last two months of

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your your content and some of

::

the topics today is almost like a highlight reel i'd like to kind of cover some

::

points and jump into a little bit more depth and nuance on

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those um one of the

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first ones i absolutely loved was when you're talking about

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strength training and the extra nuance that we can kind of bring to it now um

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obviously it's been a big buzzword in the community for a while and everyone's

::

kind of jumping on board and everyone seems to have a different interpretation

::

but to kind of get more of an insight onto how you see it um that's something

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that i know that everyone listening,

::

is absolutely dying to learn more about so yeah well i think uh i mean i'm all

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in favor of anybody who tries to help their clients get stronger. I think that's awesome.

::

And the reason I think that is awesome is because there's just a massive accumulation

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of evidence in the scientific literature now that it just helps people live

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better, healthier, longer lives.

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And so of all of the things that you could sell in business.

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Like longer, happier, healthier lives, it's like, there's not much,

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it doesn't get much better than that. You know, this is like,

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we're doing the Lord's work here. This is good stuff.

::

So I think it's fantastic that anybody, anybody out there who's trying to help

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their clients get stronger, like go, you know, that's awesome.

::

Um, and so I think that probably the two big points, and you can sort of take

::

this where you want to take it from there is firstly, the, a new,

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um, position stand came out from the American college of sports medicine,

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uh, on resistance training this year.

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And the last one was like five or six years old. So it's quite a, quite old.

::

And probably one of the biggest takeaways from this new position stand,

::

which is, and position stand is by the American College of Sports Medicine.

::

They get to get like a dozen people with PhDs in strength science and they read

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through like a hundred systematic reviews.

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And then they say, okay, so this is the state of current scientific knowledge

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on this topic. Right. So this is like an exhaustive list kind of position stand.

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And so probably the biggest takeaway is that the, from this stand is that the biggest benefit,

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in terms of how much strength you gain, in terms of like health benefits,

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like life extension and rejection of chronic disease, improved cognitive function, all that kind of stuff,

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comes from when you go from doing nothing to doing a little bit.

::

So from that perspective, anything, the routine that you do is better than the

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routine that you don't do.

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Even if the routine that you do kind of is suboptimal and it's not perfectly

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designed or whatever, it's like just doing something is way better than doing nothing.

::

So if you're out there badly training your clients, like high five because you're

::

training your clients and they're getting way more benefit than if you weren't

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training them. So good on you.

::

So that's number one. And, and, but the second thing I think is that I think

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in Pilates especially, but even in physical therapy, there's a lot of confusion

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about what strength means and people use the word to mean different things.

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Sometimes people use it to mean endurance. Sometimes they use it to mean power.

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Sometimes they use it to mean strength in the, in the technical definition.

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I think a lot of times in Pilates, we don't actually know what we mean when

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we say the word strength. And so we say, oh, we're helping our clients get stronger.

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But when, if I said, okay, what specifically, what does that mean?

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A lot of people I don't think would be super clear on that.

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And so I think that's where we get into all these debates about his Pilates

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strength training or whatever.

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It's like, well, first we have to just get clear on actually what it means to

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help someone get stronger.

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Yeah, so the challenge with this kind of conversation I've found personally

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is almost like a lack of words to describe exactly what's happening.

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So, you know, you say, okay, well, potentially what we're doing in the rep range

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with like my method of reformer training is we're pushing like 30 plus reps,

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you know, and then you would consider that potentially more endurance.

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And then the outcome though is still over time clients can do the same duration

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with more resistance um if heavy is harder or less support body weights the

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load so there is like evidence there purely based on their performance that

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they have improved physically,

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and then you go to what is that is are they stronger now even though it's endurance

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range you know is it strength so that's the the part that i always find that

::

i would appreciate a little bit more nuance on and how to describe it accurately

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what the actual outcome is i mean is it just a bit increase in strength endurance but then it's.

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Is that strength, you know what I mean? Yeah. So in, in the broad literature,

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we would define strength as your ability to exert force against an external object.

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So we measure like how heavy of a thing can you move or how much,

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you don't even have to move. It could be isometric, but how much force can you

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exert against an external object?

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And that's very easy to measure. We measure it in newtons or kilograms.

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And so that is just like the higher, the number of

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newtons you can produce the stronger you are and so

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that is strength but then within the

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category of what the acsm would call muscle fitness which

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broadly speaking kind of falls under the umbrella umbrella of

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strength there's endurance which is how

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long you can lift a submaximal amount for so how many

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reps can you do at like three quarters of your maximum for

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example then there's power which is like how

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fast you can move something of moderate load then

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there's speed how fast can you move something light so

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there's all these different and then there's kind of like hybrid like

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you know speed endurance and you know so there's

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there's all of these kind of subcategories of muscle fitness

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and broadly speaking in terms of there's

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a lot of crossover and overlap between all of these

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things uh and broadly speaking

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any of them that you improve you're

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going to accrue a lot of the health and

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life extension benefits and a lot of the functional benefits you know so it's

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not really to say that like pure strength is better than power or endurance

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you know in terms of health or you know whatever so that's one thing is that

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the benefits kind of cross over but obviously if you're sports specific,

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like if you're a speed or power athlete,

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then endurance is not going to be as good, you know, and vice versa, right.

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If you're a marathon runner, you know, power is not very important. Yeah.

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Um, so it becomes kind of sports specific depending on what outcome you're optimizing for. Um, but.

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But in terms of like, there's also a lot of overlap between developing these, uh,

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capacities at a basic level, by which I mean, if you're relatively new to resistance

::

training and you do any sort of resistance training, whether you're doing like a hundred reps,

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you know, or two reps with a really, really heavy load or whatever in between,

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you're going to develop all of, you're going to get faster and more powerful

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and stronger and better endurance, like all of the above.

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And if you just do keep doing that,

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you will keep improving all of those attributes up to a certain point.

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But then when you get to a certain level and you're sort of above,

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you're already in the above average category at this point, you know,

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if you want to maximize strength, well, you have to lift really heavy things to maximize strength.

::

But if you build up your endurance by doing 30 pushups or 30 lunges or whatever,

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well, you're going to increase your muscle mass.

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And ultimately that is going to increase strength. You're going to get stronger

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by doing that, but you're just not going to get as much stronger as you would

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if you lifted something very heavy, but you're going to get better endurance.

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So you're sort of biasing it more towards endurance, but it's still,

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you're still going to improve your strength.

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And in one way, kind of endurance kind of falls under the umbrella of strength training anyway.

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So in terms of like, what should we be doing with our clients? I think it's like.

::

Back to the ACSM point number one, the routine they stick to and enjoy is the

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one that's going to give them the greatest benefit over the time because the

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biggest benefit comes from doing nothing to doing something, right?

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So if we just keep them coming back, like we already won 80% of the battle, right?

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So we have to show them some kind of results over time in order for them to

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achieve that, to look better, feel better, have more energy,

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not have sore knees when they walk upstairs or be able to do all this exercise

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they couldn't do before.

::

And so you can do that with endurance you can do with power you

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can do with strength you know like there's no inherent benefit

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to maximizing strength i

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mean yeah i think when you try and maximize anything

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it becomes a little bit obsessive and you

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have to sacrifice other things in order to do it and for

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some people like elite athletes that's a trade they're willing to make but

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for most of our clients they just want to show up a couple of times a week get

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a bit toned have more energy look good in jeans you know it's like it's anything's

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good it's all going to work definitely have you ever played those games video

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games back in the day where you had like a must have been like a character maybe

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it was an athlete or like um.

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On the game and it had like a list of attributes, you know, like speed,

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strength, endurance, power, acceleration.

::

Yeah. I'd always love those games so much because I'd be trying to maximize

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the hell out of every attribute. I want these guys to be the fastest,

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strongest possible thing possible.

::

Yeah. And I feel like that's kind of the same approach to like training these

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clients. It's like, I want them to be so fucking good, you know,

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like, um, build them up in all the areas.

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Well, you can get people, you can build people up in multiple areas up to a

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point, but no one's ever going to win the gold medal in the marathon and the powerlifting.

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In the same, you know, body because they, to a certain extent,

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once you get to an elite level and for most people, you can improve endurance

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and strength and power all at the same time.

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But once you get to a certain level, like probably competitive level,

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the more you maximize one, you actually have to decrease the other.

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Like there's no marathon runners winning powerlifting competitions because the

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sort of body that you need to win a marathon is kind of the opposite sort of

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a body you need to win a powerlifting competition.

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And so when you get really, really good at, to maximize your strength,

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you have to put on a lot of muscle mass, right?

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You, you, if you go and look at like someone winning a powerlifting or a weightlifting

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competition, they've all got muscles, right?

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And there's a very strong correlation.

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There was a study a few years back where they looked at the Wilkes score of

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elite powerlifters, which is basically just their pound for pound strength rating,

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like it was irregardless of their, their body weight, it was like their,

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their, their relative strength, relative to their body weight.

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What they found was there was almost perfect correlation between the amount

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of muscle mass, muscle mass and their Wook score.

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And so what that says is that over time, you know, someone who's more muscular

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is going to be stronger than someone who's less muscular.

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So anything you do to increase muscle mass is going to increase strength over time.

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And so you can't really kind of separate out those functionalities.

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But if you wanted to become really, really like a speed athlete,

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like if you look at elite mixed martial artists, right, they're not massively

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muscled because all of that extra muscle mass actually slows you down.

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There's more weight you have to move.

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And so it actually hinders you. and it hinders

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your endurance as well because you have to provide oxygen to all of that muscle mass

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so but for most of our clients like i would

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say 90 of our clients we can you

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know increase all of their stats you know at the

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same time but i think often in pilates i'm not necessarily talking about the

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way you teach pilates nathan but the world at large we focus a lot more on moving

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very slowly so we we eliminate the speed and power development which is really

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important not just for athletes but But for everybody,

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like if you have an elderly client,

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their chance of falling and having a fracture is vastly decreased if they have

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increased muscle power.

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Because if you trip, which is how most falls occur...

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You can catch yourself on your leg and explosively decelerate, right?

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Like you catch yourself. That requires power, right? It requires speed and power.

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And so even elderly people, not elite athletes, like everyone needs speed and

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power. And speed and power are the things that decline the fastest.

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Like we say we lose strength and muscle, but actually we lose speed and power

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much more quickly as we age.

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Everyone, you know, will know that elderly people aren't as fast. Yeah.

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As younger people, right? Even more obviously, even the, even the,

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the kind of fit muscular elderly people are slower than fit muscular younger people, you know?

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And so speed and power is something we really need to work to preserve as we age.

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And so I think there's a real need for moving fast in, you know,

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with load in Pilates, you know? Yep. But I think we neglect that a lot.

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Yeah, that's right. But, you know, if you talk about the purpose of training

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to kind of prepare your body for the real world, like obviously you have to

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move quick in the real world too.

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Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually things that you're not anticipating.

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So, you know, reacting to situations

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like getting out of the way of like a vehicle you didn't see or, um,

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yeah, an obstacle you didn't see or, you know, someone kind of running into

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you and you have to kind of catch yourself, you know, all those moments that require you.

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I think, um, yeah, to be ready.

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So you have to have the body that's capable the.

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The muscle mass thing, I think, could be like a really good way to minimize

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the confusion because if the outcome of your training is you increase muscle

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mass, then you get all the benefits of that, you know. Right.

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And there are lots of research, like I said at the start, on the correlation

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between strength training and longevity

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and health and dementia and mental health, all that kind of stuff.

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And so we can look at three things when we look at that.

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We look at strength training volume, like how much strength training you do

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on an average week look at muscle mass which is like a pretty

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good correlation between if you do more strength training as long

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as you're doing right you're likely to have more muscle mass over

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time and then third thing is actual strength like how much can you lift right

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and those three things are not exactly the same thing like you could do a lot

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of strength training but do it very badly not put on a lot of muscle mass and

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not get much stronger right or you could do strength training the way that say

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Olympic weightlifters do it, which is very,

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very low reps, staying away from failure,

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focusing more on the explosive power actually is what they develop.

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And so Olympic weightlifters, obviously they're much more muscular than the

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average person, but they're much less muscular than the average bodybuilder.

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And yet they can lift double or triple sometimes what a bodybuilder can lift.

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So strength and muscularity are not exactly the same thing.

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And so there's studies on looking at strength training volume,

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the study's looking at muscle mass and the study's looking at strength as measured

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by how much you can leg press or whatever.

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And they all, all of those things correlate with improved lifespan,

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improved health span, improved quality of life.

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But of them all, strength, objectively measured strength, like how much can

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you leg press, for example, how much can you squeeze on a hand dynamometer,

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that has the highest correlation with strength.

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Health, et cetera. So strength, muscle mass, resistance training volume.

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But muscle mass has a pretty high color. It's not a very big difference between

::

muscle mass and strength.

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So I would say, and muscle mass is the easiest thing to train for because you

::

can do 30 reps, you can do five reps, you get the same amount of muscle mass. Yep. Right. So yeah.

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And plus that's what makes you look good. Yeah.

::

Yeah. Well, I suppose the body composition is just a ratio between body fat

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and muscle mass. Right. Um.

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And it's amazing how much more attractive everyone looks naturally when those

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ratios change, you know, and you build the natural abilities that you already have, you know.

::

So I find that exciting that, you know, we could potentially simplify it down

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to just increasing muscle mass because in these general populations,

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anything you're going to do is going to basically do that.

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Anything. And if you're doing 30 reps or even maybe 35,

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40 reps, you know getting pretty close to

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failure in that time you are going to

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increase muscle mass exactly as much

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as if you did five or ten reps like there's

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literally no difference in the outcomes in terms of muscle mass and you're going

::

to get for the average person like way more strength than you probably even

::

thought you could develop you know just by doing that right and so we don't

::

need to maximize strength,

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you know, and if you, you know,

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realistically, if you truly want to maximize strength, you're going to run out

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of options on the reformer fairly quickly because there's just not enough springs.

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And even when you get to body weight, it's just, there's not enough body weight

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to, you know, so I think you can, you can, you can bias for strength,

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you know, as in like very high load,

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relatively low reps, like under 10 reps, you know, to failure when someone's

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relatively a beginner, because there's lots of stuff on the reform that's really hard for a beginner.

::

But as you get to be more experienced, you have to have been going like a year

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or so pretty regularly and working pretty hard.

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It's like, you're going to run out of springs, you know, so you have to start

::

increasing the reps or you have to add, add some big ass dumbbells at some point. Yep. Yeah.

::

Yeah. Yeah, I think the...

::

The systems that everyone kind of is creating to try and achieve these outcomes.

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Like that's where the kind of diversity in the market offerings are because

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everyone has a unique take on how to try and get to the same point.

::

I mean, I've definitely much different beliefs to a lot of people out there

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about the best way to get to it.

::

Um, but that's the magic, you know, you can go out there and you can pick any

::

experience you want, you know, you can try them out and see what works for you.

::

Um, well, the main thing is the intensity, you know, And when I say intensity,

::

it means proximity to failure.

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Like you need to get, to substantially improve muscle mass, you need to work

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within like two or three reps of failure where you literally cannot do another

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concentric, you know, rep. Yep.

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And, you know, you'll get like a non-zero amount of muscle growth if you go

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like five or six or seven reps from failure, but it'll be vastly less.

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And if you go 10 reps from failure, you're basically just doing low intensity cardio. Yep.

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Yep. Which is what most Pilates is. Yeah.

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Especially, you know, if the spring doesn't change, you're doing some extended

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flow. Two years later, it's still two springs on footwork. Yeah.

::

Yeah. Yeah. No change over time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

::

All right. So, um, I like it.

::

So you bring extra nuance to that topic about, you know, the improvements you can get.

::

Technically you are getting stronger, challenging the general population. Um,

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I mean, if we just got everyone in the world, all adults to go to Pilates once

::

a week for 50 minutes and just do 30 reps to failure once on each muscle group,

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like we would like massively reduce the burden of chronic disease.

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We would extend people's lives by decades. like this would

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be a major step forward for humanity you know so

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forget optimizing the training we just get

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them to show up and work hard that'd be amazing well

::

that's the i think um from other posts i've seen you

::

do um you went

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through like a list of things which is kind of typical that a studio owner

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or instructor might be posting you know posting on

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the social media like hey you know i got a spot free wednesday

::

night but all you're doing is hitting the same market which is

::

already committed you're not kind of accessing the people that

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haven't come yet and they're the ones that you really want to get to so um

::

so are you uh providing like

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a training for people how to do paid marketing to kind of access to kind of

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bring in new clients is that something that you've created um when i i've got

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like at the moment like 22k followers on instagram when i do a post it varies

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depending on who shares or whatever but typically i'll get like 1 000 people We'll see a post.

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And so if you're a little Pilates studio and you've got like,

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you know, 1200 followers or whatever, you do a post, I've got a free class on Wednesday night.

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It's like 15 people are going to see that. And they're probably the people who

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are already your clients anyway, who already like your post.

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And that's why the algorithm shows it to them. Yeah.

::

So it's like, you're preaching to the choir. Yeah. You're like,

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Hey mom, I've got a class on Wednesday and you want to come.

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You're like, your mom's like, yeah, nah, I'm not coming.

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So I just think social media as a

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marketing tool for a local Pilates business

::

is not a great thing because you're limited

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inherently by geography and whereas

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for you and me nathan our market is

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the whole english-speaking world right you're going

::

on a tour of the us the uk i've got most of my clients are outside of australia

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uk and us predominantly bit of europe i've got a few in australia too but when

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your market is the whole english-speaking world or at least the big five countries

::

australia canada us uk you know new zealand pretty much then yeah Instagram is a great place to,

::

to meet people and to introduce yourself to your market and stuff.

::

But when your market is like a five mile radius around, you know,

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your studio, it's like that's, Instagram is not the best tool for that in,

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like as an organic medium in most instances.

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And also cause most studio owners like, like as you know, Nathan,

::

cause you've been doing it for years to grow an Instagram, like it doesn't mostly happen by accident.

::

You have to have a deliberate strategy like it's work it's a job that's right um and uh,

::

Most studio owners don't have a strategy and they're not that excited by posting

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on Instagram and it shows. Yeah. You know?

::

And so to me, I just think it's basically a waste of time for most people.

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I think Instagram is really good as a, just a source of social credibility.

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Like if, if you look, found an ad for a studio or whatever, you probably go

::

and do your due diligence and check them out on Instagram and see if they're legit.

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And if, you know, what, what it looks like. Yep.

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That's what I do. Anytime someone applies for a job with me,

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I'll check out their social media, et cetera.

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Or if I'm talking to a potential new client, I'll check out their Instagram

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and see what they're all about.

::

Yep. But I'm not going to find that employee or that client or whatever.

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You know, I'm not going to find them on Instagram. They might find me on Instagram

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because my market's the whole world.

::

But yeah, so in terms of paid ads, I don't run a course on paid ads. I do coaching.

::

I've got various programs I do with studio owners to coach them.

::

And one of the things i'd help people with is paid ads but i don't have a i

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don't i mean we've got trainings inside actually i do have a training but it's

::

i don't sell it as a standalone training i share it just with people because

::

with people inside my program because.

::

I think the pilates industry is in a really really exciting place at the moment

::

is growing just unbelievably fast and the speed of growth is accelerating i

::

think and we're getting to a stage now, we're in a lot of places,

::

uh, Australia, a lot of parts of the US, some parts of the UK now,

::

it's becoming quite saturated.

::

Like I've got, I've got several clients in my mastermind where there's like

::

half a dozen Pilates studios within a four block radius, you know?

::

And so the.

::

2019 when you could just like open a

::

Pilates studio and put a sign out the front saying Pilates and

::

you know next day you're full you know those days aren't coming

::

back any you know anytime soon and so

::

you know what worked in in advertising three

::

years ago two years ago doesn't work now you

::

know so I think there is no kind of real cookie

::

cutter approach and I've got some clients like I said

::

in very high competition areas I've

::

got other clients opening up the first ever studio in some

::

rural town in nebraska or whatever it's like so

::

good yeah it's like great it's like put a put a

::

handwritten you know sign up in the local local supermarket

::

notice board and you're full the next day and so

::

i think there's a different strategy you know

::

for each studio of course there's overlap but i don't

::

think there is one kind of cookie cutter strategy but

::

i think one thing you have to know unless you just live in

::

a microscopic small town where everyone knows everyone you have

::

to learn how to run paid ads and it's

::

like you might fucking hate it it might be boring it's like all

::

that might be true but it's like well do you hate making money yeah do

::

you hate having clients you know like yeah yeah so it's a necessary um necessary

::

thing but the thing about it is if you are effective with it then it's like

::

it's like a tap you turn on and off, like when you need it. It's pretty cool.

::

I, um, you know, I post every day on Instagram. I think I've,

::

I don't think I've missed a day since three, four months, you know,

::

like I post, even those I don't feel like it, I still post.

::

Um, and I also run ads and I'll tell you what's easier.

::

Uh, so yeah, the ads are just, just, I mean, you want to reach twice as many

::

people, you just double the budget.

::

Yeah and then you got all the metrics all the data to look at and then you're optimizing yeah um,

::

Very good. Now, another thing I was really interested in is you're talking about

::

previously kind of held beliefs about loading the spine, you know,

::

being straight or in flexion and things like that.

::

And pretty much everyone, you could say, has like an aversion or a fear that,

::

you know, if you load the spine in a flex position, then you're going to be

::

doing some kind of damage.

::

But in the posts I've seen you do recently about that, that's completely the

::

other way around. Well, it's interesting.

::

Whenever I do a post on that topic, there's a couple of other topics that get

::

the same response, like spinal stabilization, like cueing the deep abdominals and stuff like that.

::

A couple of other topics, but this is one of the classics. I get comments,

::

like I did a post on this a couple of weeks back.

::

I think it's up at like several hundred comments already.

::

And the comments fall into three baskets.

::

Um and basket one is like yes amazing love this post you know thanks so much,

::

basket two is like this is bullshit no one says that like no one in pilates

::

is saying don't flex your spine i teach my clients to flex your spine you don't

::

even know pilates what the fuck are you doing go and learn pilates,

::

And then basket three is like, oh, this is so bullshit because neutral spine

::

is so important and we should never flex.

::

And so group two and group three are directly contradicting each other.

::

Cause one, group three is saying, yeah, you know, you should never flex.

::

And group two is saying like, no one says that.

::

But it's so interesting. And I get it with the core activation thing and spinal

::

stability and a couple of other things as well.

::

Pelvic tilt. I did one on pelvis. Oh yeah, I love that. You know,

::

no one did Pilates teach us pelvic tilt, you know, and then there's right under

::

that, there's a comment going, yes, pelvic tilt is so important, you know. Yeah.

::

So this is something very interesting to me because of my academic kind of background

::

in exercise science and physiology and stuff.

::

And just, I've just been really interested in biomechanics for a long time.

::

Um, and around the, the year 2000 and the kind of the, the decade after that,

::

I was very much into neutral spine.

::

I'd like every, I've got lots of photos of me teaching clients. I've got neutral spine.

::

I've got testimonials from clients who, you know, I saved like,

::

hallelujah, Jesus saved me, you know,

::

um, but I'm not saying I'm Jesus, but, um, but like I was saved this client

::

says by you know raf taught me neutral spine and now now i can walk again sort of thing um,

::

And I was basing that on kind of research that I was reading at the time.

::

But since then, there's been a lot more research come out that has basically

::

just, I guess, shown a more nuanced position.

::

So what we used to think, what I used to think, and what Pilates, I think,

::

still thinks, apart from the people who say Pilates doesn't think it,

::

is that there's something special about

::

neutral spine like it's somehow like safer or more

::

efficient or stronger or

::

somehow optimizes your ability to activate particular muscles

::

correctly or something like there's some kind of special thing about neutral it's

::

different to any other particular position you

::

know that's just not true like there's just like no evidence

::

for it you know it's just neutral is a

::

it's not even a position it's a zone and the

::

biomechanical definition of neutral is the

::

mid-range of any joint where the ligaments around

::

the joint are all lax right so ligaments of

::

bands of connective tissue that join bone to bone may say they attach you know

::

from one vertebra to the next vertebra in your spine and then you got them in

::

your elbow your fingers everywhere and there's ligaments on the back that as

::

you bend forward those ligaments get tight they stop you bending too far forward

::

like you don't want to bend like It's slinky.

::

You don't want to be like, you don't want to bend like 90 degrees at your L4-5, right?

::

So there's a ligament there to stop, to limit the range of motion. Yeah.

::

And there's a ligament on the front that stops you bending too far backwards.

::

One on the right that stops you bending too far to the left and so on and so forth.

::

So it just stops you from falling into a puddle on the floor and keeps you relatively

::

structured. Yeah. Right. Right.

::

And so as you bend forward, the ligaments on the back get tight.

::

And as you bend backward, the ligaments on the front get tight.

::

And when you're in the middle, neither of them are tight.

::

Right. And so there's about a 10, you know, roughly 10 degree range of motion

::

around the midpoint of the joint where none of the ligaments are tight.

::

Right. And that 10 degree range is called the neutral zone.

::

Right. And that is actually, interestingly, it's where there is the least stability

::

to the joint because all of the ligaments are lax.

::

Right. So it's the least ligamentous support in the neutral zone.

::

Now, does that mean it's dangerous? No, it's perfectly safe.

::

There's nothing wrong with neutral.

::

I just, it's not more stable. It's actually less stable mechanically. Yep. Right.

::

Um, so yeah, there's just nothing special about neutral.

::

Now there's nothing wrong with being in neutral, nothing wrong with teaching

::

people to be neutral. It's like fine.

::

It's nothing wrong with it at all.

::

There's nothing special about it either. And I just think there's no particular

::

reason to teach. Why would we teach someone?

::

I mean, why would I teach someone 17 degrees of flexion? It just seems like

::

a random thing to teach people. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it, right?

::

But it's like, well, why do we teach them zero degrees of flexion?

::

What's special about that? Yep. You know?

::

And we have interesting literature in several areas.

::

So the reason that we think neutral or we thought neutral was,

::

you know, better, we thought it was safer.

::

We thought it was more stable. We talk about the stability thing.

::

It's actually less stable.

::

From a purely biomechanical standpoint, we thought it was strongest.

::

Um we thought it was most efficient okay so

::

when we look at the those in order like all of those are not true

::

we'll look at the pain thing right so neutral protection

::

against injuries or pain it's like no there's no evidence that people with sore

::

backs have worse posture in fact people there's the opposite people with sore

::

backs tend to stay straighter when they lift if you look at somebody imagine

::

somebody with a really sore back

::

imagine doing up their shoes what do you imagine them bending like a cat.

::

No, you imagine like staying stiff like a board and kind of like bracing and

::

like, you know, getting down on one knee.

::

So people with sore backs actually move with more rigid, neutral spines.

::

People with no back pain, they're going to slump and slouch and bend,

::

you know, it's like a normal person.

::

We look at the strength thing, actually, as you bend forward,

::

there's very good biomechanical literature and cadavers on this and also in actual living people.

::

This is a pretty clear biomechanical finding. As you bend forward,

::

uh, and then you got to pick something up, like you pick up something heavy off the floor.

::

Uh, if you do it with a rounded back.

::

Your ligaments on the posterior side, the back side of your vertebrae,

::

and also all the fascia sheets back there, become tight, right?

::

And it turns out that ligaments are way stronger than muscles, right? Yep.

::

And so you actually can produce more force when you flex because you actually

::

tighten up those ligaments and they, it's like pulling on a steel cable as opposed

::

to like a flex band, which would be the muscle, the contractile tissue.

::

And so at around 90% of your maximum spinal flexion,

::

you are substantially stronger, as in you can deadlift more than in a neutral

::

spine where you're just using the muscle force because the spine is much less

::

stable because you're not tightening those ligaments.

::

Yep. So it's more efficient, requires less effort. I mean, you can think about this as well.

::

All right, so imagine you have to pick up a coffee cup or a pen off the floor, right?

::

Imagine you have to keep your spine neutral to do that. So you stand up tall,

::

you're neutral, get your hips under your shoulders, you bring your ribs in,

::

everything's perfect. Okay, now lock that in, brace it in that position,

::

keep your spine neutral, pick up the pen.

::

Okay, that's going to require a lot of effort. Yeah. Right? Whereas if I just

::

said like, hey, just bend over like a normal person, pick up the pen, way easier, right?

::

So it's more efficient. Now, the definition of efficiency is how much input

::

versus how much output, right? If it's more effort to do the same task,

::

it's less efficient. That's what efficiency is, right?

::

So neutral spine is not safer.

::

There's no evidence that people who bend when they lift or whatever get more

::

back injuries or anything like that, it's not associated with less pain.

::

In fact, it's associated with more pain.

::

I don't think that's what causes the pain, but I think it's part of the cycle.

::

It's not stronger. It's not more efficient. It's not more stable.

::

Now, it's not bad. There's nothing wrong with neutral, right?

::

It's like, what's all the fuss about? Yep. Yep.

::

Yeah. Wow. There you go. That's awesome. I love it.

::

And I know that you're talking about there's natural variation in like –,

::

structure of people's hips and then trying to use those points to determine

::

like that to me because obviously the body is not symmetrical the body is like

::

highly asymmetrical and then that's just in in one body and then you look at

::

your variations between all the humans and I mean,

::

it's incredible the differences between all of us anyway the idea that everyone

::

would have the same points on their hips to kind of better find these things

::

I mean you think about it's laughable really. It is.

::

And I don't, well, it's laughable when you contrast it, because I think it's

::

one of those things that's not immediately obvious.

::

It's not obvious until you kind of see it. And then it's like,

::

oh yeah, how could I have not seen that? But before you see it, it's not obvious.

::

And so I was always under the impression for years and years that that skeletal

::

structure is kind of like this immutable structure.

::

Thing. Like if you have a structural scoliosis, like a sideways curvature of

::

the spine, it's not something you can just fix with exercise or whatever.

::

Or if you've got a leg length difference is because one femur,

::

one thigh bone is longer than the other.

::

It's like, there's no exercise that's going to fix that. So it's kind of immutable in that sense.

::

And so it's like, okay, well, if your bone is higher, that's got to mean that

::

your pelvis is in the wrong spot, you know?

::

So it kind of made sense to me for a long time. But now the more

::

I've thought about it and I've read the research obviously now showing

::

that we do have different shaped pelvises and different shaped femurs

::

and different shaped hip sockets whatever it's like i

::

think about it and i think about like way back in the early 20th

::

century when we had this kind of what was it called um eugenics or something

::

where we'd measure someone's like head circumference and go oh yeah you must

::

be dumb because your head circumference is this you know or it's like the distance

::

between people's eyes would indicate how trustworthy they were or you know that

::

kind of like crazy what we'd now think I was just ridiculous,

::

you know, who, what idiot would believe that? Yeah.

::

Oh, Nathan's head is X number of centimeters. Therefore his IQ must be this much. Yeah.

::

Um, uh, and it's like, well, we're just literally doing the exact same thing

::

with your pelvis. Oh, your bones at this point.

::

Therefore you've got this muscle balance. It's like, well, no,

::

it's like, are people's heads different shapes? Yes. Are their eyes different distances apart?

::

Are their ears different heights? Are their cheekbones different?

::

You know, of course. Yeah. Of course they are. So why would their pelvises all

::

be identical? Yeah. You know?

::

Yeah, it's just, I mean, look, look, any, any people, dear listener that you

::

know in your life, right?

::

Loved ones, family, whatever. Like put your hand next to their hand, right?

::

They have different length fingers, different width of your palm,

::

different circumference of your finger.

::

Like some people's fingers are more straight. Some people's are more wavy.

::

Sometimes the middle finger is a bit longer. Sometimes the first finger is a

::

little bit like people's hands are very different, right?

::

Why would their pelvises be all identical?

::

Look at people's feet. Why do we have like 10 different shoe sizes available

::

and different widths of shoes?

::

Why do we have like regular suit jackets and then tall suit jackets?

::

People have different length spines.

::

It's like the evidence is just everywhere that people are different sizes and shapes.

::

And if you think if you've got someone who's six foot four, 300 pounds and someone

::

who's like five foot one, 125 pounds, we think of those two people who died.

::

We looked at their skeletons, they would look the same. You know?

::

I don't think they would. No. Right? No. So, so it just seems ludicrous the more you think about it.

::

Yeah. That if we go, oh, your bony landmark is here and your bony landmark is

::

there, therefore you're, this one's wrong, you know, and this one's correct.

::

It's just, it's just a meaningless exercise. Yeah.

::

Yeah. And the science backs that up, that when we, scientists,

::

we get, you know, like the, the,

::

And I hope your listeners will forgive me here just to go into slight digression,

::

or not digression, but just like nerd out here for a second on the anatomy, is that neutral pelvis,

::

okay, as we're taught in the Pilates land, which came from Kendall et al.

::

Muscles Testing and Function with Posture and Pain, which was first published

::

in I think 1947 or 49 or way back mid-20th century.

::

They defined neutral pelvis as when the ASIS, the front pochiated bit on the

::

front of the hip bones, and the symphysis pubis were aligned vertically, right?

::

So symphysis pubis and your ASIS are directly in line, like neither one is in

::

front or behind the other.

::

That's neutral. And the idea was that when you are in neutral,

::

then the PSIS, the pochiated bit at the back of your pelvis next to the sacroiliac

::

joint, would be at the same height as the ASIS.

::

Now, when I was taught in Stott Pilates, I was taught on a female,

::

it should be one to two centimeters higher and on a male, it should be level in neutral.

::

Turns out that's not true. But when scientists actually get cadaver pelvises

::

and they put them in a jig, that puts them in a perfect neutral with the ASIS

::

and the symphysis pubis perfectly aligned. Okay.

::

And they measure the height of the PSIS.

::

They find there's a massive variation of up to 23 degrees in how high the PSIS,

::

when all of those pelvises are in a textbook neutral with the symphysis pubis

::

lined up with the ASIS, right?

::

And they also find differences up to like 11 millimeters in the heights of the iliac crests.

::

Even when the pelvis, like the ASIS is perfectly level, okay,

::

they'll have one iliac crest higher.

::

So the test I was taught, a lot of us were taught, you know,

::

you feel the iliac crest, oh, this one's higher, therefore your pelvis is hiked

::

on the left side or the right side or whatever it might be.

::

Maybe that size of the pelvis is just bigger. Like, has anyone ever got like

::

one ear bigger than the other one foot bigger than the other one hand bigger than the other?

::

Like, you know, it was like, of course, one eye bigger than the other.

::

Like we all have these weird asymmetries all over our body, right?

::

It's like, why would the pelvis be different? You know, like there's other,

::

the average person, can't remember what was left or the right ASIS,

::

10 degrees forward of the left ASIS, just structurally, like it's actually a

::

pokey or out of your bone, you know?

::

And, and so when you're palpating, oh, this side's a bit further forward.

::

So your pelvis is rotated.

::

Probably not. It's probably just, that's just the shape of the bones.

::

You know, just feeling their normal variation in their human shape, you know?

::

So yeah, anyway, it's just normal variation and we pathologize it. And, um.

::

You know, another study that, uh, I really love, they, they,

::

they looked at 120 pain-free people and, um,

::

measured the pelvic alignment and they found 75% of women and 85% of men had

::

an anterior pelvic tilt. Right.

::

And it's like, all right, well, so if 80% of people, pain-free people,

::

80% of pain-free people have it.

::

Is it a tilt or is it just, that's a normal shape of the pelvis?

::

80% of people are above average.

::

Yeah. Yeah.

::

Yeah, just sit with that for a moment. You know what I mean? It's crazy, isn't it?

::

Because that's the pervasive language. That's the standard speak out there,

::

you know, the standard kind of thought processes.

::

But when you take just a little bit of a look into it, it just doesn't make sense at all.

::

Well, I think in Pilates, and like there are so many other disciplines in which

::

people do this. I think physiotherapy did this for years.

::

You know, other disciplines, osteopathy, chiropractics, classic for it,

::

massage, naturopathy, you know, so many disciplines do this.

::

I think it's almost universal.

::

I think let's just say humans do it. Yeah. Is we, we make up dysfunctions that

::

we can then fix with our special method.

::

Yeah. Yeah. And, and so we, we gift somebody, you know, oh, congratulations.

::

You've got anterior pelvic tilt or your spine's unstable or what you've got

::

a hyperlordosis or your glutes don't fire properly or whatever.

::

Oh, don't worry. We can fix it.

::

If you just come twice a week for the next five years. Yeah.

::

But it's like, the thing is though, we don't need to make up these bullshit

::

fairytale, you know, things that don't exist.

::

We can just help people get stronger. Like we have a genuine thing that we can

::

help people with, which is to fucking live longer. Yeah.

::

Like there's nothing finer that you can gift somebody in my opinion.

::

So it's like, we don't need to make up stupid, you know, make believe,

::

you know, pathologies like anterior pelvic tilt or glutes not firing properly.

::

Like when just, when there's a genuine pathology, which is people aren't exercising

::

enough. They're not strong. They're not confident in their bodies.

::

We can, we can fix that. We actually can fix it. It's a real thing and we can

::

actually fix it. So let's just do that. Yeah. Let's just do that really well. Yeah.

::

Yeah. No, no, it's awesome. That's awesome. It's really refreshing.

::

It's almost like when you kind of look at these things in more detail,

::

it's almost like a bushfire and it just burns everything away and it's like

::

rejuvenating, like the freshness that comes out of it, the new openness,

::

the new focus on actually what is important, you know?

::

Because it's so easy to get bogged down in all these kind of like things because

::

it's all like second person, third person information bouncing around.

::

You've got people debating it without ever having read any literature themselves.

::

Because someone else said it and someone else said it.

::

And that was me like 15 years ago, you know?

::

And so no shade on anyone out there. If you've, if that's what you currently

::

believe or have believed or whatever, it's like, yeah, we've all been there

::

and you have to trust people.

::

You know, when I went to Pilates certification, that's what I was taught.

::

I was like, why wouldn't I believe that these people are the teachers?

::

They've got a textbook and it seemed legit.

::

And I think they genuinely believed what they were teaching me.

::

They just didn't know any better, which is a bit shameful really,

::

because as an educator, I think it is incumbent. I think you actually have an

::

obligation to actually fact check and learn what you're teaching if it actually is true.

::

But I think it reminds me of that meme, the sort of like the idiot savant meme,

::

sort of like, you know, there's the village idiot who's got this very simplistic

::

view of like, oh, why don't we just help people get stronger, you know?

::

And then there's this like journeyman who's like, you know, knows a little bit

::

and they're like, oh no, we've got to fix their anterior pelvic tilt and correct

::

their muscle activation and their pelvic and their lordosis and their,

::

you know, tibial torsion and their blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

::

And then there's the Jedi master who's like, hmm, why don't we help people get stronger?

::

Yeah. Yeah. I can see why these ideas, they can be kind of.

::

It's kind of like this, they sound technical enough to be true.

::

So it's easier to believe because it feels like it has credibility.

::

And then if it comes from a credible source, you think, well,

::

it must be, you know, why else would they be talking about it if it wasn't important?

::

Yeah. And I 100% agree with that.

::

And I think the thing is with credible sources, you shouldn't,

::

you know, dear listener, you shouldn't trust anyone.

::

You shouldn't trust me. like in this episode, I haven't cited any specific research papers.

::

And so don't take what I say here as gospel.

::

Uh, if you want to, uh,

::

you know, look at one of the 350 plus episodes of my podcast where I've talked

::

about these topics repeatedly. And I do have a crap ton of scientific citations

::

on each of those episodes.

::

And so it doesn't matter who says it, I think you should always look for,

::

if someone's making a claim about something about exercise science or strength

::

or pelvic tilt or pain or stability,

::

they should have, you should, it should be a totally normal thing to ask them,

::

well, well, how do you know that?

::

You know, how do you know that's true? Because I've known lots of things that

::

were true that turned out to be not true.

::

And so you have to be able to ask that question. And I think it's a massive

::

red flag if someone doesn't want you to ask that question.

::

How do you know that? Yep. That's right. Yep.

::

Now, just before we came on air today, I was talking to Raph about one of his posts.

::

He was saying that it seems like a common practice that new instructors get

::

overloaded by trying to learn how to do everything.

::

They're trying to do like a hundred things, but not doing any of them very well.

::

And i think that reminds me

::

of that uh must have been a quote from bruce lee maybe like don't fear the guy

::

who does has done 10 000 kicks fear the guy's done one kick 10 000 times i thought

::

it was so funny because that is the same philosophy i've got when it comes to

::

like training a new trainer um so rather like i'll do like a general,

::

kind of workshop induction about like the loading principles

::

and about the philosophy and some of

::

the methods like the teaching method but as soon as that's done which takes about less

::

than an hour then we just focus on teaching one exercise we do it like 10 or

::

15 times and we do it right before a practice teaching session and then they

::

just teach that exercise three four classes in a row and then next week we do

::

same process again just add another exercise until eventually they're doing the whole warm-up,

::

then doing third of the class, half the class.

::

And then, so you get that contact time and you get the reps in.

::

And it's very like, if you look at the time you practiced it versus the time

::

you get to use it, it's literally, we did it like eight times in a row and now

::

you're teaching it right now. So that...

::

That post you have on that, I just could not agree more with that because it

::

just is very, very effective at skill acquisition because you're just getting

::

to action everything straight away.

::

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's no, it's not a coincidence that you like that because

::

I think it's just that reflects a reality about how humans learn.

::

You know, it's like no one is going to learn better by trying to memorize a

::

thousand things at the same time. Like it doesn't, that's not how a human brain works.

::

So anybody who's taught a lot and experimented with different methods of,

::

you know, speeds of progression and different ways of training people,

::

eventually you have to figure this out.

::

You know, it's better when you drip feed things to people and let them get them

::

doing a lot of reps of something very basic and then get them to implement that

::

and then keep cycling on that until they nailed it. And then you move on to

::

the next thing, you know?

::

And if you read the scientific literature that's what

::

it says as well but it's like that's the scientific literature is just

::

literally people did trial and error experiments and figured out what

::

worked and that was it you know but i

::

think that in pilates we we mistake often breadth for depth and we think like

::

okay if you know 500 exercises and you're comprehensively trained that makes

::

you a good instructor it's like

::

well knowing an exercise is not a binary it's not like a zero or a one,

::

you either don't know it or you do it. And it's like, well, how well do you know it? You know?

::

Okay. You can do it, but can you cue it?

::

Can you cue it to someone who doesn't know those anatomical terms?

::

Can you cue it to someone who's never been on a reformer before?

::

What do you do if someone can't do it on the spring setting that you gave it?

::

You know, how do you know what, do you know what that looks like?

::

You know, and how many more springs do you take off or add on based on what you see?

::

And like all of these things are things that it just takes time to learn, you know?

::

And I think the example I use in a podcast recently with Heath was my daughter's

::

been, she's 19 and she's been, become sort of mildly obsessed with baking sourdough bread.

::

Oh, nice. And so she watched a couple of TikTok videos, learned how to make

::

sourdough starter and just did it all myself.

::

And the first couple of loaves, you know, it didn't turn out perfect, but they were edible.

::

And then after, you know, three or four loaves, she started to get the hang

::

of it, but then she sort of started to overcorrect and then she undercorrected

::

and then she, you know, and so after her like 20th or 30th loaf,

::

it's now like perfect every time. Yep.

::

But you just have to go on that journey of reps, you know, to encounter those

::

kinds of weird situations where like it was a little bit different,

::

you know, the fridge was a different temperature or the humidity was different

::

that day or the whatever.

::

And you just have to learn how to incorporate all

::

of those little variations into the way that you use a

::

skill and that you just have to do reps like

::

there's no substitute for reps in in learning and if you're learning 500 things

::

you do one rep of each thing it's like you don't get enough air time that's

::

the bruce lee thing right you just you need more reps and so i think it's kind

::

of backwards the way people in Pilates broadly,

::

you know, view quality.

::

They say, oh, you know, we, all our instructors are comprehensively certified

::

with 500 hours of training.

::

It's like, yeah, but what did they do in those 500 hours?

::

You know, like if they spent 500 hours and they need to teach footwork,

::

I'd be like, fuck, I bet this person is really good.

::

But if they've learned 500 exercises and spent one hour on each of them,

::

including learning how to do it themselves, I'd be like, yeah,

::

they probably know nothing.

::

Yeah. Because there's no way they remember them all.

::

Yeah. Like if you get to number 500, there's no way you remember number one or number 17.

::

Yep. Right. So I think, you know, simply listing all of the things that you've

::

supposedly in quotes learned is, it's not only kind of misses the point,

::

I think it's kind of flips the point.

::

It's like literally the more breadth you learn, the less depth you can learn.

::

Because we've only got so much capacity.

::

And so if my daughter had done one loaf of sourdough, then done a salad,

::

then done a chicken Kiev, then, you know, practice flambé and crepe Suzette's,

::

it was like, she would be shit at all of those things, you know?

::

Whereas she's done like 50, 60 loaves of sourdough now. She's really fucking

::

good. She could sell it. Yeah.

::

You know, she could sell it. And it's like, every time she puts a loaf in the

::

oven, I know it's going to turn out exactly perfect.

::

And she brought two loaves out the other day and she was like,

::

oh, which one do you think is the good one?

::

I'm like, they're both perfect. like she's like no this one's better i'm like

::

yeah they both look fucking perfect to me like and so she's now at the point

::

where it's like you know this one's like a quarter of a percent better in her

::

mind because of something that's like dude they're both like top one percent awesome.

::

That's the that's what comes from just lots of

::

reps with introspection and feedback and looking at

::

tiktok and going oh mine doesn't look like hers you know and then why is

::

why did it turn out this way and then just trying to figure it all

::

out and getting really good at doing a narrow range of things

::

and then she can start to branch out and add in she did

::

a fruit and nut loaf and the first one kind of sucked because it

::

made it too heavy and it didn't rise at the right but then she figured out oh

::

if i use these different fruit and nuts and i fold it in this different way

::

and i put it on this different temperature it's like after five or six attempts

::

she's nailed it right and then she's like oh what if i made crackers and what

::

if i you know and so now she's done a chocolate loaf and she's done all these

::

kinds of different layers. Yeah, that's cool.

::

And that just comes, that's the equivalent in Pilates of if we're teaching footwork

::

and now we've come across someone,

::

oh, someone had a knee replacement or someone had a sore back or someone had

::

never done Pilates before or somebody, you know, was really strong and had been

::

squatting double their body weight at the gym or, you know, like now we've faced

::

all of those situations.

::

We've figured out how to solve each of those.

::

And now somebody else comes in we've never seen before. It's like we've seen every other darn thing.

::

So we can just figure it out on the fly because there's nothing can surprise

::

us at this point. We've just done the reps, you know, but I said to my daughter,

::

Hey, do a loaf with cinnamon and apple.

::

She'd be like, yeah, you know, bam, probably turned out perfect first time.

::

Cause she's done enough reps now. She just knows.

::

She knows what it's meant to look like, feel like, smell like, taste like. Yep. Yeah.

::

And that's where the confidence comes from because you've got the experience

::

to back it up and then you can predict, you'd be able to kind of anticipate

::

and predict success in the future based on what you've done in the past.

::

So you're walking into environments where there's like not many things that

::

you wouldn't be aware of that you wouldn't be able to handle.

::

So maybe one of the reasons why new instructors feel a little bit stressed is

::

because they're trying to learn 500 things and not, not, not doing anything

::

well, you know, just take it, strip it right back to the, what's the one,

::

because you can only teach one exercise at a time, right?

::

That's why I always get, I always get the fires of me up.

::

It's like, there's no, there's no point getting fancy with stuff. You know what I mean?

::

Like it's, to being a great teacher isn't really about knowing all these exercises.

::

It's about how well are the clients doing the exercise you gave them.

::

That's what makes you good. So being fucking awesome at teaching the fundamental basic exercises,

::

sets them up to be able to do everything else so if you can't teach them how

::

to do a lunge or a chest press or a plank then

::

that's the fucking problem because that's the thing they have to be good at

::

first it's like the prerequisite to every other exercise it's like you

::

unlock exercises based on building the core attributes

::

to better handle the different variations so when i'm

::

teaching an instructor i'll be getting them to look at all

::

right they've just given the movement cue everyone's moving i'd stand

::

there on the side of the room with them at a vantage point about like all right

::

cool how many people are moving exactly the way you intended so we're looking

::

at speed of movement range of motion body position springs and coordination

::

is everything exactly the way you wanted and you might go okay we're doing footwork

::

he said you want to toes in the bar but see there's three people with the heels in the bar.

::

So they pre-cure that, you know, they're like, okay, cool. So they're already

::

starting to get the feedback loop from the environment.

::

And they know that if we've got 18 people in the room, 18 out of 18 have to

::

get it before you do anything else. There's no point.

::

So that's kind of like internal metric. And you want that to be internalized

::

within them because that means you're building autonomy and they're going to

::

be awesome when you're not there.

::

Yeah. Well, that's exactly the way we teach as well. The first thing is you've

::

got to just say the words to get people into the position.

::

Second thing is you got to look and say, like, are they actually doing,

::

you know, what I ask them to do, like are the heels or toes or whatever it might be.

::

The third thing is that we teach, and I'm pretty sure you teach some version

::

of this as well, is like, well, are they at the right level of challenge?

::

Does this person need an extra spring? Does this person need to move faster

::

or smaller range of motion or whatever? Do we need to put foot bar down for this person?

::

And then the fifth thing, or the next thing, I've got what number we're up to,

::

but the next thing is we progress it.

::

So everybody's there, everybody's with it, everybody's working. Great. Next level.

::

Yep. Um, and I think where we, I think we often confuse this and I,

::

I certainly made this mistake as a relatively young instructor is we feel like

::

we need to entertain the clients by giving this constant stream of novelty in

::

the exercise selection.

::

But we're actually like as a lifelong exerciser and dear listener,

::

you're probably in this basket as well.

::

If you love Pilates, you probably do a lot of Pilates and you probably do a

::

lot of exercise and running and weights or whatever you do.

::

It's like the joy in the activity people. and there's research on this as well

::

in terms of behavior change, people usually start an activity for extrinsic reasons.

::

So they want to lose weight, they want to look better, they want to fit into

::

their dress or they fit it into high school or whatever it is.

::

But that doesn't keep you going five years later.

::

People keep going five years later because the intrinsic joy of the activity, it feels good to do it.

::

Just regardless of the result you get, it's just you like doing it and it becomes

::

inherently rewarding to do it well.

::

Anybody got good at anything is because you.

::

You've found an inherent reward in improving it at doing that thing.

::

Like it just feels like there's no, it's not good because it just is good. Right. That's the end.

::

And so when you exercise and you get stronger, that is inherently rewarding.

::

Right. If you can do six pushups and last week you get under do five,

::

like that is not fucking boring.

::

That is really fucking exciting. Like people get really excited about that.

::

And when you get to the, when you do 30 pushups and 40 pushups, it's like.

::

Fuck yeah, I'm like a super being now you know and and

::

so like i think we we don't give

::

people credit our clients credit for like

::

people can be very motivated by

::

very simple routines as long as they're progressing

::

as long as they're getting better at doing the thing you

::

don't need a lot of variety most of the time yep yep and

::

the part of that is the education of like them understanding how they're improving

::

like if they're doing the same exercise in a different spring setting

::

which is technically harder a lot of the times they wouldn't

::

understand why is like the lightest spring harder in

::

this exercise why is the heaviest spring harder you know

::

it's based on the loading you know like if we change the

::

body position to stretch the spring more why is that harder you know

::

so being able to kind of say all right everyone who wants an extra challenge

::

yep everyone's like no like yes let's go all right everyone if you're next to

::

challenge next time you push your arms straight let's lift the hips you know

::

and the reason that's harder is you stretch the springs more it gives you more

::

resistance so um so then okay cool so it's not just do this.

::

Okay this this context like if you do

::

it this will happen and then there's also why is it harder

::

so you do that enough

::

all the clients like know just know everything so by the time you're teaching

::

like a intermediate slash advanced class they pretty much have almost like an

::

instructor level understanding and they also means they know how to cheat so

::

then you have to like watch that be like hey where are your feet over there

::

you know um but it brings a lot of joy because you're focusing on such small details, you know?

::

Yeah. I think it's funny that the, the, like you say, the small details.

::

Like when you understand the relationships between the equipment settings,

::

you know, your football setting, how far you're pulling the ropes,

::

where your foot is on the carriage, whatever, spring choices and the load, right?

::

And how you can manipulate all of those different things to apply more or less

::

load in very, very fine increments to somebody.

::

Like you say, when you lift up to your knees in a, in a chest press or,

::

um, you know, arms in straps facing the foot bar, like why is that harder?

::

Well, there's a balance challenge. Obviously you've got a smaller base of support

::

and a longer lever, but predominantly, like you say, you're higher up.

::

So you're pulling the ropes further, which stretches the springs further,

::

which increases resistance on the spring. So it's harder on your shoulder muscles.

::

It's not just harder on your balance and your core. I mean, you know,

::

all of this back to front, But, but when you understand that as an instructor,

::

like small little details, like move your foot two inches forwards or drop your

::

foot bar one rung or whatever.

::

Come up to kneeling, you know, can make a massive difference to the client's level of challenge.

::

And that's where, even though we're not focusing, hopefully,

::

on anterior pelvic tilt or muscle activation or your lordotic curve or whatever,

::

small little details in alignment and equipment setting and positioning do make

::

a big difference. And it is important to focus on these things.

::

And so what I'm advocating, and I know what you're advocating,

::

Nathan, is not just like free for all, no one gives a fuck about alignment or whatever.

::

Us like that's couldn't be further from the truth but it's

::

like we're trying to set people up in their body

::

position their equipment settings etc to maximize load

::

on the body part we're trying to load within the

::

client's capacity so that they're right at the level of their right at the limit

::

of their current level of ability and that requires an under a deep understanding

::

of how the equipment functions their body mass their height how they relates

::

to it and looking at their technique to be able to figure out,

::

okay, is this easy, medium or hard for this person based on what I'm seeing? Yep.

::

And so all of that's super important and alignment is really important for that

::

and details are really important, but just not for the reasons that we probably

::

used to think about muscle activation and posture and blah, blah, blah. That's it.

::

The purpose of form, I believe, is to guarantee the target muscle group is getting loaded.

::

That's why we're here. That's how you get stronger. You know what I mean?

::

So like if you're doing an exercise to work your abdominals,

::

you don't want to be loading your lower back.

::

You know, your form is dictating where the load is being directed.

::

Not that there's anything wrong with loading the lower back,

::

but if you're trying to load the abs, like let's load the abs.

::

And when we load the lower back, let's not load the abs, let's load the lower

::

back. That's right. That's right. So you're setting an intention and you're getting the outcome.

::

So the form is like the physical way to guide the load to that point, you know, so. um.

::

That's why it's so important that the form is right um but the understanding

::

of the instructors to be able to kind of always be aware of that that's that's

::

also important because like um.

::

Coming back to that point we made earlier about being really good at one thing

::

at a time and then expanding that.

::

A part of the process, for example, like if we're going to teach a lunge,

::

it'd be looking at, all right, you know, this name springs, props, body position, move.

::

Once you got them to the move part, which is the movement cue,

::

what we're looking at is how they're moving, like what positions are they're in.

::

And you're looking for things which are like high probability that aren't going to be working.

::

Like you've got the foot in the wrong position, the springs are wrong,

::

they've got their knee resting on the carriage when you didn't want that,

::

the coordination's off, you know, maybe they're going too deep into it,

::

turning into like a hip flexor stretch instead of loading up the front leg.

::

And obviously there's like so many different ways that people teach a lunge

::

and there's so many different beliefs about what you're trying to do with it.

::

So just to quantify mine, let's say we're doing body weight lunge so less tension is harder.

::

It kind of looks like a single leg deadlift. You're kind of hinging at the hips,

::

leaning forward, loading up the front leg. So your glutes on the standing leg are loaded.

::

And then as you stand up, carriage comes in. So you're targeting your butt on

::

the standing leg, basically.

::

And the carriage is there just

::

really to support the back leg and stop you falling over. That's right.

::

So if you were to put your knee on the carriage, then you're loading up the

::

hip flexor on the inside leg and you're taking the weight off the target muscle

::

group. So you're not going to get anything out of it.

::

So when you're training that new instructor. Well, you are going to.

::

It's got to be a nice, gentle hip flexor stretch.

::

Yeah. It's not what we wanted. No gentle stretching.

::

Yeah. So that, the measurable, basically the target muscle group's the reference

::

point of every exercise.

::

So if the experience you're meant to be getting is already dictated by what

::

the target muscle group is. So if you are getting a light hip flexor stretch

::

when you're going to be targeting the glutes, then obviously it's not the right

::

outcome. You know what I mean?

::

Not acceptable. Um, if you wanted to stretch the hip flexors,

::

obviously, yeah, go for it. Um, but the,

::

basically in every exercise there's like a probability of what will go wrong

::

because once you've seen it like 10 000 times you kind of get like a little

::

bit of a list of like oh no well,

::

this is probably going to happen so being able to let the instructors know exactly

::

what to look for kind of they can anticipate the things and so they find them

::

faster and then they teach them how to fix it in advance so then when it happens

::

they can just fix it straight away um so yeah obviously,

::

this stuff is exciting because you

::

can really accelerate the learning of an instructor and the confidence by

::

just letting them master one thing at a time rather than trying to overload them with so

::

much stuff i think like in getting into the lunge again and i'm i'm not sure

::

how much time we get so cut me off if we need to stop here but um like with

::

the lunge if your goal is to load the glutes which i think is a fine goal for

::

a lunge i would add and adductor magnus like the main adductor on the inside

::

of the front leg, the glute leg,

::

that's also going to work anytime you work those glutes in deep hip flexion,

::

like you're going to work your ductors as well.

::

And of course the quads, a little bit on the front leg, you're not going to

::

avoid working those, but yeah, all right, point taken. Um, yeah.

::

The things that are going to enhance that, you know, there's going to be like

::

a list of half a dozen things.

::

It's like, all right, well, you've got to have your weight on the front leg,

::

not the back leg. That's thing number one.

::

And if you hinge forwards more at the hip, you're going to go into more deep

::

hip flexion, which is going to load those hip extensor muscles or glutes and adductors more.

::

So if you hinge your torso forwards over the front leg, if you keep the knee

::

back behind the toes, it's going to load the hip more than the knee less.

::

Now, dear listener, there's no rule that says you can't lunge with your knee

::

forward of your toes in, like I'm all for lunding with your knee forward of your toes.

::

If you've got a reason for doing it, like you want to load the quads more or whatever, it's fine.

::

It's perfectly safe, perfectly healthy, nothing wrong with it.

::

But if you go also load the glutes, you're going to facilitate that more by

::

keeping your knee back and your shin more vertical and hinging at the hip more

::

rather than at the ankle and the knee more, because that's going to load the hip more.

::

And if you go also load the hip, well, let's load the hip. And then if you want

::

to take, once your body's hinged forward, you want to take your hands forwards

::

overhead, that's going to lengthen the lever.

::

Put more load on the hip. If you want to have a couple of two kilo dumbbells

::

in your hand, it's going to add even more to that.

::

Okay. So we can go more and more and more. And then at the other side of the

::

body, the more springs we have on the carriage there, the easier it is.

::

We're going to deload that front leg because this carriage now becomes a support.

::

The more we lean our knee or our foot or whatever on the back carriage, the easier it is.

::

So ultimately we would want to have our knee off the carriage,

::

zero or a very light spring on and a hundred or 99% of the weight on the front foot.

::

And in order to keep the spring as light as possible, whatever spring we've

::

got, we want to have the front foot, the grounded foot forward far enough so

::

that as you lunge down, the carriage doesn't get pushed out very far because

::

the further you push it out, the more attention's the spring.

::

And so all of these things, if we put them together, it's like, okay,

::

front foot is at the base of the foot bar a little bit in front your weights

::

all on the front leg shin is pretty vertical you're hinging forward at the hips

::

chest forwards arms reach above your head back knee off the carriage half a

::

spring or zero spring or a quarter spring,

::

No one in the world is not going to work their glutes if you do that.

::

That's it. You don't get a choice.

::

Now you may or may not feel it in the moment, but you're going to feel it tomorrow

::

morning when you wake up. Oh, if you stay there for three minutes, you'll feel it.

::

Yeah. Everyone hits the wall at some point. That burning sensation basically

::

is that fatigue sitting in.

::

And if you're feeling it in the target muscle group area, then you know you've done it right.

::

Yeah. And how do you know all that? How do I know all that? Well,

::

you have to have done fucking 10,000 lunges, right?

::

And gone, oh, when I lean forward, that hurts my glutes more.

::

You know, when I put my knee on the carriage, that hurts my glutes less,

::

you know, like yeah, you'd know that.

::

And then also just understanding some basic biomechanics about,

::

you know, what I said about loading the hip and loading the knee and all that kind of stuff.

::

And just thinking through the equipment settings, like you've,

::

you talk about all the time, like, okay, well in this, like you said,

::

there's a bodyweight lunge.

::

So less springs is harder. So therefore more springs is easier.

::

So therefore more tension on the springs is easier. so therefore I want to have

::

my foot further forwards to reduce the tension on the spring,

::

right and if I really wanted to do it I'd have no spring on or I'd keep my back

::

leg bent and I actually wouldn't push the carriage out as I I'll just just do

::

a squat with my foot resting on the carriage but I wouldn't push the carriage

::

out you know so yeah all of those basically just come from reps basically yeah that's right um so the.

::

The interesting thing about this is like, you know, you might,

::

if, if there was a comment section here, maybe there is a comment section somewhere

::

on Spotify, I haven't had a look at that yet.

::

Um, no doubt someone in comment section will say, oh, that's not a lunge.

::

Yeah. Well, in the method you learned it in, it's not called that,

::

but in the method that I've created or the method you've created,

::

we call it whatever we want to call it.

::

You know what I mean? And it's like, whoever does your method will learn your

::

exercise names and spring levels and systems for the purposes of achieving the

::

outcomes that were set by you or by the course.

::

So to, to argue about like something as trivial as what it's called,

::

it's really open to interpretation really.

::

Like it's called whatever it's want to be, what you want to call it.

::

And if you have a system behind it, then basically rather than kind of arguing

::

about what it should be called, it's irrelevant.

::

It's more about. What are you trying to achieve by it? Is it a hip flexor stretch?

::

Is it a quad workout? Is it a glute workout?

::

Like what's it for? Yeah. And if you don't know what it's for,

::

I can look at it and go, okay, I can tell whether it's doing that or not.

::

That's right. And therefore, you're achieving your objective.

::

Whether it's called a lunge or not, who gives a shit? That's right. Yeah.

::

That's it. That's just for the simplicity of like group understanding,

::

you know, how to have a name.

::

I mean, when you say lunge, I just think, okay, one foot's forward,

::

one foot's back and we're going up and down in some manner.

::

That's it. That's it. And whether your knees forwards are back,

::

your hips forwards are back, your toes are forwards are back,

::

your springs are high or low.

::

It's like, yeah, there's 50 different ways we could do that,

::

that would each achieve a slightly different outcome.

::

And I think what people by and large struggle with, what I used to struggle

::

with, what I see students struggling with at the early stages of that program

::

is they see the movement, but they don't really understand what it's for.

::

And I just think, okay, I'm doing a lunge, a lunge, a lunge,

::

a lunge, a lunge, a lunge.

::

Like, nah, depends on all of those things that we just listed out about positions

::

and springs and settings.

::

And you could totally change that lunge. Like if you put on two full springs

::

and put your knee on the carriage, it's like that becomes a completely different exercise.

::

You're not even working the front leg hardly at all. It's more about the back leg now.

::

And so, like, you can completely change the exercise by changing a couple of small exercises.

::

Things about the position or if you let them lean on their knee on the front

::

leg which is a common one that clients will try and do it's like or lean on

::

the foot bar whatever it's like yeah so it's,

::

and then you think oh we did a killer glute workout today it's like

::

yeah none not so much you know yeah like one of the worst things as an instructor

::

you could ever hear is i didn't really feel that and that's because the body

::

position wasn't right or something in the movement pattern wasn't right and

::

that's something or you didn't have the right load on for that person. That's right.

::

So that's something that you want to kind of eliminate hearing at all.

::

You always want to be able to kind of have your finger on the pulse and be like, okay, cool.

::

Because when you watch the speed of movement, range of motion,

::

you can tell by all those things, like what they're actually feeling to do it.

::

So you could make those changes. But you always want to get to a point where

::

you can guarantee every single person is getting the experience you intended.

::

So if you want them to feel the glutes on the front leg, that's what they've

::

got to get. And then you've got to make the changes until everyone gets it.

::

Um, yeah, one more thing I really want to cover with you is you had like a real viral post.

::

I must've been a couple of months back where you, you brought together like

::

all these different books and you're just kind of going through how the philosophy

::

and the people that are kind of creating the rules and the definitions of what

::

Pilates is and isn't changed over time.

::

And I couldn't believe how like systematic it was.

::

It was like, oh, this group kind of got into power and they decided that that's

::

not a part of it now. And every new group that came through was like,

::

oh, that's not right. You know?

::

So can you run us through really quickly, just like a short version of that?

::

Yeah, this is something I find fascinating.

::

It's basically, I call it Pilates through the ages, the history of Pilates.

::

And so Pilates was invented by a guy called Joseph Pilates.

::

And he didn't call it Pilates, he called it contrology, the art of control.

::

And he wrote a book in 1940, which he published in 1945, called Return to Life

::

Through Contrology, where he laid out 34 exercises all on the mat.

::

And so his system was very vigorous.

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It was based on kind of early 20th century, late 19th century medical gymnastics.

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Like, think about if you went into the army in 1920 and you did do like your

::

physical exercises, like imagine toe touches and star jumps and those types of things.

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That type of thing. And so he never mentioned, like things that he never mentioned

::

at all that are like we take as for granted in place, like activating individual muscles.

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Whole book in Return to Life with Contrology, you give very specific instructions

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on how to do every single exercise, never once mentions a muscle, no muscles.

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In fact, he specifically says in the book Pilates or Contrology is not merely

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for the development of this or that pet set of muscles, but for the uniform

::

development of the body as a whole, right?

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So he's against targeting, you know, this or that muscle. It's for the whole body development.

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He doesn't mention neutral spine, not once. It's not a thing.

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It doesn't have the concept, right?

::

Yeah, so he, in fact, specifically says when you're lying on your back,

::

you should press your low back flat to the mat, right? So we should flatten

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our spine, which is not neutral. It's the opposite of neutral spinal flexion.

::

So then we get to the classical area. Joseph died in 1967, and sort of the next

::

person to kind of take up the mantle of the lead of Pilates was Romana Krasnowska, one of his students.

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And there was many other of his students who were just as senior as Romana,

::

but for political reasons, she was kind of put in charge. She was kind of more...

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Um, had a bigger personality, I think. Uh, so she was put in charge of,

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of Pilates, uh, at Joe's old, um, studio and she was a prima ballerina with

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the New York ballet, right?

::

And so this is where the classical era of Pilates came in, which was called

::

the classical because she was a classical dancer, right?

::

So she took all these things out of classical dance, like foot positions,

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first position, second position, the, you know, the V, the wide foots on the

::

footwork positions that we have, they're all at a classical dance and this is a hug a tree.

::

This is just like first and second position in ballet, right?

::

So all of these, the rond de jambe and devil pay with the leg,

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all the ballet terms that came from that era and she changed the system, you know,

::

fairly substantial, like added more exercises to it, changed the,

::

modified the technique for certain exercises, changed the cueing,

::

changed like quite substantial changes to the system. Um, yeah.

::

And made it much more balletic. So it was much less medical gymnastics and much more like dance now.

::

And then, uh, the people that Romana trained, you know, they became their instructors

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in their own right in the like eighties and nineties and early two thousands.

::

And that was called the contemporary era of Pilates because they were contemporary

::

dancers, most of them. Right.

::

And so they introduced and they introduced stuff.

::

You know, that generation was like Moira Stott slash Merithew

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and Rail Iskowitz with bassey and uh

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brent anderson uh he wasn't a dancer he was a physiotherapist but

::

you know with with polestar and that kind of generation and

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they introduced uh biomechanics and

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principles and physiotherapy principles at

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the time so that's where we introduced like in stop pilates i was never

::

taught oh actually the principles of pilates you know control centering

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precision breath flowing movement blah blah blah that was introduced after

::

joseph died he never mentioned those in any of his books

::

right they were introduced in about 1980 so kind of in the classical era

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um uh in a book by

::

friedman and eisen and then in the 1990s and

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2000s in the contemporary era with with morris stott

::

and the and the polestar stuff they introduced instead

::

of the six principles of flow and precision and

::

blah blah blah they introduced biomechanical principles so

::

the principles that i learned in stott parties were pelvic placement breathing

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thoracic and rib cage placement scapular stability and

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mobility and cervical placement right so no mention of

::

precision or control or flowing movement or you know it was

::

all about the the scapula should sit flat and flush on the rib cage you know

::

blah blah blah so it was all about biomechanical principles and that's where

::

we introduced neutral spine and we went from flatten your spine fully on the

::

mat to neutral or a very slight imprint which is a like a baby flexion uh then

::

we went to activate your transversus abdominus.

::

A lot of those contemporary systems are big on that sort of deep muscle activation.

::

So we went from Joseph, never cue muscles.

::

Work inflection. We don't have any principles. Okay.

::

To like, now we've got these six principles to now work in neutral to cue muscles.

::

Like it's, it's literally opposite.

::

Wow. And the contemporary people introduced lots of partial moves.

::

So like, like the prep move for the hundred or the rollover, whatever it might be.

::

Uh, and then that became like in your first lesson with Joseph,

::

we used to have this video, we show our students first lesson with joseph like

::

never done pilates before he just some random person off the street completely untrained

::

you're doing the hundreds you're doing the roll over like these full-on moves and

::

joseph's like whacking on the head with a stick and telling you you know go

::

harder not literally whacking you with a stick but he was pretty forceful and

::

then you fast forward to like 2001 with stop pilates and it's like your first

::

lesson you barely get to move you literally just sit there you have to focus

::

on your breathing and expand your ribs this way and that way and you have to

::

focus on your pelvic flora and your transverse abdominal,

::

you never actually exert any muscular force at any point.

::

And so it's gone from this very vigorous exercise form from Joseph to this essentially.

::

The opposite of that, you know, very, very cerebral thinking about your muscles,

::

thinking about your alignment, thinking about your awareness of each muscle.

::

So mystical kind of. Yeah. And then now we're getting into this, um, fitness,

::

well, well into the thick of the fitness Pilates, you know, era where it's about

::

like what we've been talking about, targeting muscle groups and bringing people

::

near failure and improving strength and all of that.

::

And at each, and you know, so a lot of this fitness stuff, I mean,

::

a lot of people, are still doing neutral spine a lot of them aren't you know

::

so it's kind of a bit mixed bag some people are using dumbbells some people

::

think that's not real pilates you know so on and so forth some people on mega

::

formers some people think that's not real pilates and at each generation,

::

they look at the next generation and go the

::

kids these days you know back in my

::

day we had to walk to school 12 miles through the snow you know

::

bare feet it's like these these kids these days i don't understand

::

pilates you know back in my day you know we understood pilates because

::

we used to do neutral spines like yeah but the people when you

::

were a kid they were like oh these kids these days with their neutral spine like

::

oh for fuck's sake you know flatback was good enough for

::

us you know like what's wrong with these people you know what's the biomechanical

::

principles oh what's wrong with flowing control and precision and all of that

::

and joseph would have been like what's all these newfangled principles flowing

::

control and precision like you know why are you doing all this like isn't my

::

method good enough as i wrote it yeah and so every generation there's just like.

::

Resistance to the next generation i remember in like 2017 18 or something i

::

was in the pilates alliance of australasia on the board there and i remember

::

they had this brand new crazy franchise called kx pilates um which i'm not sure

::

if you've heard of them or not,

::

um at kx they had like some crazy number like 20 locations or something in australia

::

at the time you know it's pretty small and um the board and the pia were like

::

oh my goodness you know it's so dangerous like oh the group exercise is so badly

::

trained you know injuries blah blah it's not real pilates it's like.

::

Just fear it's just fear about the next new thing and now funnily enough i see on social media,

::

not specifically kx people but all of the people of

::

that generation who've been teaching group reform for a decade now like oh the

::

new instructors these days it's dangerous i don't know what they're doing it's

::

they're not trained properly it's the injuries and the people who are these

::

days who are trained in 10 years they're going to be saying exactly the same

::

freaking thing about whatever the next generation is it's like just get over

::

yourselves people like move with the times Yeah,

::

well, it just seems that people's kind of attention span is only limited to

::

like a decade or slightly before, but they might not realize that it's actually

::

changed so much from what it originally was.

::

But in saying that, as long as everyone is creating good experiences for their

::

clients, I think that's the main thing.

::

And the whole judgment thing is a bit like unnecessary.

::

I think there's a place for everybody. Teach contemporary, awesome, get a movie.

::

Like i said right at the start the biggest benefit goes

::

from doing nothing to doing a little bit even badly right so

::

you just get people moving if they enjoy doing classical

::

contemporary contrology fitness dumbbells mega format whatever

::

like like it's all good and if you want to

::

really maximize the benefit sure there is some biomechanics

::

and exercise science principles we can apply to maximize the

::

benefit but doing something is

::

just way better than doing nothing so

::

it's like we're all in this together and it's like

::

we should all just like be applauding each other

::

and sure we can help each other improve if we

::

want to get better at targeting the glutes is the best way

::

to do it right if you don't want to target the glutes fine you know if if your

::

clients come along and breathe and think about the pelvic floor for an hour

::

well it's way better than sitting on the couch drinking a glass of wine and

::

scrolling yeah so yeah it's all good it's all good thank you raf thank you so

::

much for coming in again mate yeah thank you,

::

Bye.

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