Shownotes
Every Pilates exercise trains strength, range of motion, and skill.
We explore how to progress your clients intelligently by adjusting one dimension at a time to build capacity, clarity, and confidence in movement.
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Transcripts
Every movement can be described in, I guess, three dimensions.
::The dimensions are strength, range of motion, and skill.
::And this is a really, really useful concept for both layering within a class
::and also for longer term programming and progressing your clients.
::And it's one of those things that once you get it, it's so blindingly obvious.
::It's like, oh, of course, you know, it couldn't be any other way.
::But before you get it, it's not at all obvious.
::In fact, it's quite unobvious.
::So Heath, you know, how do you think about this concept, these three dimensions
::of strength, range of motion and skill that, you know, that we can describe
::every exercise along those three axes?
::You know, how do you use that both, you know, both as a tool in your everyday
::teaching and in your, you know, thoughts about long-term programming?
::All right, so any movement that we're going to teach can be thought about as
::what's the requisite strength, and that's going to require you to think about
::where that strength is generated. So what muscle groups are working to create the force necessary?
::What joints slash muscles need what range of motion in order to complete the movement?
::And then what is the coordination you need to do the movement?
::And then, so thinking that through as a practice will translate to when you
::see someone struggle with a movement,
::you know which dimension they're struggling with.
::And where it can be complicated is that it's very hard to make these three things
::discrete from one another. So they're overlapping.
::And so it's not that one is usually it's
::not that it's one thing only but it's the relationship
::between not enough flexibility
::or understand and understanding but plenty of strength
::but so it but what i found useful is to try and make it as discrete from one
::another what would it look like if you didn't have the strength what would it
::look like if you didn't have the wrong what would it look like if you didn't
::understand the movement and with the sense of that then you can start to spot
::what people are struggling with.
::Okay. So let's think of an example of each of those things.
::So if you didn't have the strength, say we were doing, I don't know,
::like a long stretch kneeling, for example.
::And if you didn't have the strength, it would look like you couldn't pull the carriage back in.
::Maybe if you're doing it on a light spring or if you're doing it on a heavy
::spring, it would look like you couldn't push the carriage out.
::Correct. So just a quick sidebar, some movements lend themselves more to one
::dimension than another.
::So elephant or a forward fold is not a great way to think about strength because
::it doesn't take much, but it does take flexibility.
::Well, no, I'm going to contest that and say, you know, thinking about when I
::was recovering from shoulder surgery a couple of years back,
::that you think like something like, you know, long stretch kneeling is a pretty
::basic exercise, elephant's pretty basic exercise in terms of strength until
::you've had shoulder surgery or hip surgery or spine surgery or knee surgery.
::And then you're like, oh no, this is really fucking hard.
::And, you know, like putting on a shirt is challenging or doing up your shoes is challenging.
::Then yeah, elephant's going to be really hard. And somebody's going to find,
::so if you're rehabbing somebody or you've got somebody who's just got some kind
::of chronic condition, like arthritis or whatever it might be,
::that has trouble with a movement.
::And I can think, you know, if I put my mum on a reformer, she'd probably really
::struggle with elephant.
::Um absolutely and but but what's but what's the struggle with elephant well i think.
::If i think about my mom and probably probably all three dimensions like
::you probably have a lot of trouble understanding what you're supposed to do
::so the skill aspect would be difficult for her but but hold on let me just catch
::you there as i take i totally take your point but if we say elephant what's
::the first thing we've got to do in any movement we're going to teach is first
::equipment settings and then start position and so the first thing you're checking an elephant is,
::do they have the hamstring length to put their hands on the footbar?
::I think she'd be okay there probably.
::Okay, great. So she's got the ROM to do it. And then the next question is,
::do you have the strength to do the next bit?
::She might not have the range of motion in her shoulders to get in something
::even vaguely resembling the right start position.
::You know so so this is the worm wormhole that i
::love so catch me if i go too quick or too deep but long stretch
::knees down high foot bar one spring is your
::assessment for down stretch up stretch long stretch
::elephant arabesque tiger stretch right
::because if you
::want to think about the things you need for any of
::those big movements where i've
::landed with this is you want to see the absolute fundamentals at kind
::of the baseline right and so you know in terms
::of the strength the range of motion and the control well if
::somebody doesn't have let's say the range of motion in their shoulder to
::push the carriage all the way out on a long stretch even on a moderate spring
::well then they're probably not going to be able to do elephant you know get
::into the start position for elephant right so we're thinking about that in terms
::of range of motion and so something in terms of like in terms of a control uh
::issue or challenge control skill you know coordination,
::I think skill is probably the best word because it encompasses coordination,
::agility, balance, you know, all of the above.
::Uh, and just an understanding of the movement and how it's meant to flow.
::Um, and so an example of that would be, you know, when you pop a new client
::into knee stretches for the first time and like, you know, nine times out of 10,
::they just hold their legs still and push with their arms, you know,
::and it's not because they don't have the strength to push with their legs.
::And it's not because they don't have the range of motion. It's just because
::they don't really get it yet.
::So that's a skill issue and you can fix that with a cue.
::Well, you can fix that with a cue, and if we were thinking elephant,
::then, so a lot of people try to cue knee stretches from the hardest place to
::cue it, which would be bed on the stopper, hands on the foot bar.
::Yeah, if you push someone out into a long stretch and then just get them to
::bring their knees in, it's much easier.
::Right, so press out a long stretch, stay there, your head stays where it is,
::look at the floor, nothing changes, knees in underneath you.
::That's the easiest way I've found
::to teach knee stretches, and that's fundamentally the skill of elephant.
::Elephant is keep your head in the same place and move the bed with your legs,
::but knees down makes your body lighter and less range of motion.
::Right. So it's like the steps to an elephant are long stretch,
::knee stretch, maybe you go to elephant.
::Right. And so here's the thing is that in each of those or in every instance,
::really, in order to really unlock the skill or even start to practice the skill,
::you need to have the requisite level of strength and flexibility to get into the position, right?
::So, I mean, if you can't get into the start position of elephant,
::like you can't practice the skill of elephant, right?
::If you don't have the shoulder strength to support yourself in a long stretch
::with your knees down, you can't become good at long stretch,
::like until you develop that strength.
::So the strength and the range of motion are kind of prerequisites for the skill.
::And so you can only cue someone into knee stretches like you just did if they
::have the strength and range of motion to do that.
::Correct.
::So...
::Happened again yeah we just had a little microphone malfunction that's all right
::we'll just persevere on okay so just to catch that like you said that really
::really well and one thing,
::i would say to that is so if we say that long stretch knees down one spring
::maybe one and a half depending on the innate in the tension of the springs high
::foot bar then knee stretches is the steps to elephant that's that's the other
::way i think about that is okay,
::now when i've got raf's mom or my mom or raf or whoever
::i want to make you stronger in
::the simple version than you need to
::be in the more complicated version so i would
::say i want to see you do long stretch knees down blue spring
::maybe low foot bar for x
::number of reps with good control and then
::i know that you've got more in the tank than necessary to
::go and stand up on one to one and a half and keep the
::shape and control the bed right that says i'm the
::key concept is capacity it's not just did you
::do the previous layer it's did you make the previous layer look easy look easy
::enough that i know you can do the next layer and in fact i'm going to test that
::by by scaling up one dimension the strength dimension in a simple smaller movement
::so then i can scale down the load and make it bigger and more complicated. Yeah.
::Bigger meaning more flexibility demand. So we're, you know, because when we
::teach this to people, to instructors and trainee instructors,
::often they, like it takes a while for it to click for them.
::So what are the bits that people kind of struggle to comprehend around this, do you think?
::Um, well, I think that's the one I just said is a really big one.
::Uh, and I know that I often get people sort of feeding back to me.
::You lost me at that point. And I think, what was that point?
::Oh, that was the point that where I lost you was where I dialed up one dimension.
::I'm sure I could come back and challenge other dimensions more.
::Um, and yeah, understandably when you're learning something,
::you want it to be black and white and you're looking for just step by step by step.
::And that's slightly more algorithmic than that and the other one i would say is just,
::again as a beginner when you go okay strength range of
::motion and skill that's more nuanced than
::just saying easier and harder yes it's not just so
::then okay now i've got to make sense of that and i'm trying to
::i start to try and understand a movement
::as a strength movement it's like well very few
::things in reformer land are pure strength yes and
::you know is this a wrong movement well very few things are just
::wrong movements i think that's the wrong question yeah i agree
::with you there that that you can't
::every movement requires some amount of strength some amount
::of range of motion some amount of skill right i mean you think about like
::the most basic you know strength movement like
::a really heavy deadlift right well you need
::range of motion in your shoulders and your knees and your hips and your spine you
::need control of the bar like yeah sure it's it's a
::lot more strength than it is range of motion right but
::you there is still a level of range of motion that's required and so everything
::so nothing is like a strength move or a range of motion move like it i mean
::if you've had knee surgery and you or if you had super stiff hips or whatever
::it's like deadlift could be a flexibility move you know um and so.
::I think that's the wrong question and trying to collapse any exercise into a
::single dimension kind of misses the point that every exercise is just like you've got,
::if you're playing a video game, you've got these three health bars,
::you know, and if any one of them gets to zero,
::you die, right? You got to have all three of them in every move.
::Like there's no such thing as a move that's just got range of motion and no strength, really.
::I mean, unless you're talking about even a passive stretch, you know,
::but I mean, something that we do in Pilates as an active movement,
::like they've all got a skill and a strength and a range of motion component.
::So I think you can't act, I think they're like atoms or like they're like cells in the human body.
::You can't reduce it down any further than that.
::Like a cell is the smallest unit of you that is alive, right?
::If you pull apart a cell, the bits inside a cell are just molecules,
::just atoms, right? They're not alive, right but a cell is alive and so i think
::an exercise has strength range of motion and control but you can't you can't
::separate those things out because when you pull them out it's like they're just
::molecules they're not alive,
::Yeah. Some of the ways that, so the way I've thought about it,
::that's been helpful for me is like a graphic equalizer.
::Um, you know, so you slide one thing up and you've got like sliders up and down.
::And so it's like, how high is the strength slider? How high is the ROM slider?
::How high is the skills slider?
::And I've found that really useful. Uh, students have reflected back,
::um, one student talked about having three vases and how full was each vase of water.
::Um you know one bars is
::strength one bars is wrong one bars is skill um and
::yeah so anything that gives you the ability to have different levels of the
::things at the same time in your mind is a good way to start thinking about it
::right and you know what you alluded to before you know that the concept of kind
::of layering these different uh dimensions and you progress one to regress the other or vice versa,
::that is a classic thing that you do in rehab.
::And that when you do, you know, and I think rehab is a really good place to
::think about this because in rehab, in early rehab, so just to remind you,
::dear listener, if you didn't listen to the previous, you know,
::dozen episodes where I've mentioned this,
::which is a real possibility because we're up to episode 348, I think now this is 348.
::So I'm not sure if there's anyone in the world that's listened to all 348 of
::them, But if that's you, I salute you.
::So anyway, back to rehab. So rehab is just graded exercise, which means it just
::starts easing, gradually gets harder, to restore strength, range of motion,
::and control to the injured body part.
::And because when you're injured, you lose some amount of strength,
::you lose some amount of range of motion, you lose some amount of skill to that
::body part, you know, control.
::And so you have to restore all those things. That's a process of rehab.
::And so in rehab, at the early stage of rehab, what you do is you try to,
::as much as possible, separate those elements and work on each one individually.
::And so the way you would do that would be you would work on strength isometrically.
::So you might do, you know, stand in a doorway and push against the sides of
::the doorway so you're not actually moving.
::So there's almost no skill there's almost
::no range of motion it's just strength right and
::then you might separately work on flexibility by doing
::a gentle passive stretch right where there's
::no strength there's no control required you're just lying still but it's you
::know almost purely range of motion and likewise with the control you might do
::a very small range of motion with a very light load and practice your coordination
::and a body awareness with that body part.
::So it's never fully possible to completely separate those things because even
::in a passive stretch, there's some degree of tension on the structures.
::And so you need to not apply too much load in your passive stretch.
::So you can never eliminate the strength or the range of motion components,
::but you can minimize them. And so at the start of rehab, we work on each of
::those elements separately as much as possible.
::And then as rehab progresses, we gradually integrate those movements so we do
::strength through range with control.
::And that is the process of restoring full function to that injured body part.
::And so I think that's a pretty good, you know, technique.
::Illustration of the principle, but we can apply that exact same principle in more advanced moves.
::And when I say more advanced, I don't necessarily mean like what you would think
::of as advanced Pilates moves, but like, I mean, just like not rehab stuff that
::you would teach in a regular Pilates class, like long stretch or footwork or
::legs in straps or lunges or teaser or hundreds and all of that.
::You can apply these exact same principles to this.
::And if somebody's struggling with an exercise or if, conversely,
::if somebody looks like they're ready to progress onto a harder version,
::it's like, well, harder how?
::You know, do they need more strength challenge? Do they need more range of motion
::challenge or do they need more control challenge?
::And so just to kind of illustrate that last point that you made about kind of
::the layering and how you regress one element to increase the other element,
::well, you might build up, you know, if you're thinking about rehab and we're
::thinking about rehabbing a shoulder and you might like stand in the doorway
::and press your arm against the doorway in an isometric contraction, okay?
::And you might, you know, you might start out doing a super gentle three out
::of 10 effort and you might progress over time to doing like an 8 out of 10 effort
::and holding that for 10 seconds,
::and then you might progress to doing some kind of more dynamic strength work,
::with that shoulder but when you did something more dynamic by which I just mean moving,
::you would substantially reduce the load so you might go from an 8 out of 10
::effort pushing against the door in an isometric contraction to like okay now
::we're going to do a biceps curl with a really 3 out of 10 load.
::Right so we've regressed the strength element made it easier at the same time
::as making the range of motion and the skill elements harder and you generally
::you wouldn't want to make all three harder at the same time.
::Well said and you know
::this this idea was unlocked for me through rehabilitation work through sort
::of looking at somewhat someone what do i do for this person who can't just jump
::in and do x i want to give them their version of that at the right level and,
::uh even this this what
::we're doing now like the activity of breaking a movement down
::and thinking so thinking so in in
::our teaching system we do layered clusters so the layers which are progressively
::more challenging versions of the same thing brackets in strength and or rom
::and or skill and rom just stands for range of motion sorry yeah they they roll
::through the class and And then at a certain point,
::you switch muscle groups because you can't work the same muscle group for the
::whole class, even though that's not the topic for today.
::But looking at a movement in this filter of strength, room, and skill.
::Without the imperative of making it work in a class, is probably the activity
::in the workshops and our courses that has had the highest rate of,
::could we please just fucking do that for like a year from students.
::So when you free yourself from having to make it work in a class and just think,
::okay, so what is Flamingo in strength, rom, and skill, and what are all the
::component bits, and how could you train those component bits?
::It doesn't necessarily make for a good class plan, but it's a really,
::really powerful thought experiment for an instructor who wants to understand.
::But that's quite different to how would you build the Flamingo in a class,
::except that they overlap.
::So one of the things is how to understand what Raf just described and really
::exploring that might not look like a good class plan, but it will inform your
::ability to build a fucking awesome class plan.
::Right. And so, you know, one of the ways that we started to think about this, you and I,
::you know, several years ago was really that, you know, Pilates essentially breaks
::down into a handful of, of key movement patterns.
::You know, there's a back bend, forward bend, twist, side bend,
::plank. I mean, that's pretty much it.
::And, you know, we could probably turn some of those into subcategories and whatever,
::but basically, you know, those are your basic movements.
::And you could, and then basically we started to, we realized that basically every other,
::exercise, you know, that is not like the most advanced version of a backbend
::layers up to that backbend. Like they're just easier versions.
::And how are they easier? Well, some of them have the same range of motion,
::but a lot less strength required.
::Like if you think about something like, you know, swan dive,
::right? Or high bridge, I think, which is like the ultimate expression of a backbend
::because it requires not just range of motion, but also massive strength and skill to do it.
::On the reformer so if we
::think about high bridge well you know swan dive
::has a somewhat similar range of motion in most of
::the body but not the same strength requirement in the shoulders you
::know so it's easier in that regard right um and something like you know rocking
::has possibly even a more extreme range of motion in in the low back and and
::but less requirement for strength in the back itself to get you into the position,
::and less requirement for range in the shoulder.
::So, you know, there are lots of levels of that same exercise within the whole
::Pilates system, and each of them is easier in one or more of those dimensions.
::And if you look at somebody's, you know, where they struggle with high bridge, for example.
::Right, you can say, huh, well, you've got the range of motion in your spine,
::but you don't have the range of motion in your shoulders so therefore we
::need to work on that in one of the exercises that
::works so for example something like semicircle might be a really good place
::to work on the range of motion you need in your shoulders for high bridge or
::you could say you know you don't have the range of motion in your spine okay
::well we could work on that in you know swan dive or rocking or one of the easier
::versions of those and so we can we can trace that all the way back to cat stretch.
::That if you can't do high bridge yet and you can't do swan dive yet,
::you can't do rocking yet and you can't do grasshopper yet. Oh,
::you can't do breaststroke.
::But can you do cat stretch? Yes, I can do cat stretch. Okay,
::great. Well, we'll start you there.
::Right. And then you can just say cat stretch essentially is high bridge.
::It is swan dive. It is rocking. It is grasshopper.
::It's all of that. I mean, it's also teaser, right? It's also roll over.
::It's also teaser horseback. And then just quickly back to yesterday,
::if you're just teaching neutral, you don't get to do any of those things.
::And so thinking about these elements of strength or engine control and then
::sidestepping from there into recognizing that all of these exercises in the
::system of Pilates ladder up or layer up to one of a handful of super advanced moves.
::And that each of those super advanced moves has a strength requirement,
::a range of motion requirement, and a skill requirement.
::And there's an overall skill, but there's also like the range of motion required
::in your shoulders. And there's a range of motion required in your hips,
::and there's a range of motion required in your low back, and et cetera.
::And so you can look at that as an experienced instructor and go,
::oh, this person has the range of motion in this body part, but not in that body part.
::So therefore, what they need to work on is this earlier exercise in the system
::that is going to help them build that range of motion in that body part, right?
::Or that strength or that skill or whatever it might be that is missing in that
::full expression of the move.
::Yeah. As an illustration of this in application,
::I was talking in one of our Q&As the other week and I had a question from one
::of our mentorship students,
::a qualified instructor doing a
::mentorship program but also has done the reformer pack and which
::is your advanced basically learn to do cool shit
::on the reformer learn to do cool shit right uh like
::high bridge and snake and all that teaser and all that yeah and
::in the in the reformer pack there's a movement i teach frequently which
::is uh you're lying on your back with your butt to the shoulder pads
::and your hands on the uprights of
::your foot bone i'm talking about a roughly standard commercial
::bed with a roughly 45 degree angle foot bar that you can get your hands around
::so your palms are facing in your hands are holding the uprights of the foot
::bar and your feet are on the rails or the bed depending how long you are and
::we peel up and we push to a high bridge and it's it's it's a great,
::progression towards high bridge because the position of your hands makes your
::wrists neutral it takes out a lot of the shoulder range of motion yeah when
::i when i used to do it in when And I was learning that in yoga is basically
::the life hack was start with your hands against the wall.
::You know right exactly so so if the
::wrist the gateway to your shoulders anything that takes you out of having to
::do you know lots of wrist extension with the external
::rotation of your shoulder opens up your shoulders to lift up
::and the foot bar is wider than your own shoulders so it's like
::it unlocks shoulders for people and lifting
::up because your hands are above your head and
::when i say above your head further off the ground than your
::head and also further above your head than your shoulders you've
::got to work really hard in the shoulders to lift up right so if
::you can do that you've got the strength to
::get to high bridge but you might not have the shoulder wrong and this
::student said to me you know look I've got these people
::they've been working with me I think I want to take them
::to that move and I but I don't know I don't feel
::confident and I said okay you've got 10 clients how
::confident are you that seven to eight of those clients are going
::to nail that lift if you call it and
::the student's answer was i'm not confident because i don't know how i would
::be confident and i said okay how many of that group can do 10 or 15 reps of
::a shoulder press off a bar in a long stretch so long stretch knees down low
::foot bar two and a half springs.
::Shoulder press in and out that so you just push the bed out bring the bed in
::with your body in the low position.
::And she said, I don't know, but I don't even know why you're asking me that.
::I said, because I wouldn't think, I wouldn't even dream of asking for the high
::bridge until I knew that everyone could give me 10 or so reps on two to two
::and a half springs of that shoulder press. And she clicked and she was like, oh, I see.
::So I'm testing the shoulder strength somewhere where to the untrained eye,
::it doesn't look anything like the high bridge press,
::but I'm testing for capacity so that I can go and make it more complicated upside
::down and more, you know, difficult in skill, difficult potentially in ROM,
::technically kind of not, depending on where you're going.
::And so that, you know, I'm trying to illustrate what you just said, Raf, and that it's, it's,
::it's it's like it's not you wouldn't say that the
::shoulder press is your layer to that high bridge because
::it means you've got to turn 180 degrees you've got around your back it's
::a completely different start position but what what you're looking for is oh
::cool you guys are looking really strong in that shoulder press maybe in a week
::or three we might try that high bridge lift right and so it's it's you know
::this is the unlock of understanding each exercise along the dimensions of strength
::range of motion and skill and you look at that you know lying prone on the long.
::Stretch with a foot bar low, two and a half springs, pressing out,
::and you're thinking, okay, this is the same action of the shoulder as lifting into a high bridge.
::Now, the spine position is different, the hip position is different,
::lots of stuff is different, but the shoulder is doing the same work here.
::So if you can do this, that means you've got the shoulder strength.
::Now, you might not have the spine mobility or the hip mobility or any of the
::other things, but you've got the shoulder strength to get into high bridge. Right?
::And so that way we can break each exercise into those three components.
::And when I say break, I don't mean there's not an exercise that's a strength move,
::an exercise that's a range of motion move, but we can evaluate each exercise
::along those three axes and then use that knowledge to choose exercises that
::will help our clients develop the strength,
::range of motion, and skill they need to progress to those harder moves.
::Whatever that harder move is that that client is working towards.
::And it doesn't have to be hybrid. They could be working towards long stretch kneeling.
::This goes all the way back to long stretch. Yeah, we often kind of get,
::we often talk to high bridge because it's such a great expression of all those things.
::I've got to jump off, but my sense is that we should probably just do like a
::little sub-series and just look through a bunch of movements and think about them in this way.
::Again, as I've said, when we do this in sessions, this is what students just
::say, I could just do this forever until I really, really own the idea. It takes a while.
::All right. Good talk.
