What to Expect from Osteo Pilates Cornwall Classes

Classes with OsteoPilates Cornwall are informative, inclusive, light-hearted and aimed to encourage and empower clients.

Heather focuses on using multiple techniques to suit a range of learners – demonstration, verbal cues, tactile (hands-on) help, verbal feedback/conversation, and rarely uses “left” and “right” as instructions as it she often gets the two the wrong way around!

If you’re totally new to OsteoPilates Cornwall, here’s a run down of what to expect in your classes.

The Class Structure:

• Introduction

Heather lets you know what the main aim(s) of the class are and includes very short discussion of injury-relevant aspects of the class e.g. “for those with current shoulder pain, keep your ears peeled for lots of variations as we progress”.

• Warm-up

A typical warm-up includes exercises that assist with preparing your nervous system, muscles, and joints ready for the main section of the class.

Exercises are relevant to the main aims – for example, if it is a lower body-focus class you may work on squats, lunges, balance exercises, hamstring stretching.

Exercises at this stage tend to be ‘dynamic’ meaning that we aren’t holding stretches or poses for a prolonged time – we’re aiming to increase the heart rate, breathing rate, to warm-up the body ready to tackle the next section.

• The Main Section

This is where we incorporate strength and resistance training often using small equipment such as resistance bands/loops, Pilates circles, small weights. Throughout the exercises movement is controlled and often slower than expected but by no means does ‘slower’ mean ‘easier’.

Exercises move in ‘series’ progressively increasing in challenge and with adaptations for those with specific needs and health conditions – keep listening out for Heather’s cues.

In the Beginner/Bone Health classes, you will see more frequent rest and stretching periods in between each of the exercise series.n the Mixed Ability classes, you will see that exercises progress from ‘beginner’ to ‘improver’ level. You are advised to move on to the next level when you feel ready, or to continue at the stage you’re at, or to “rest and return as needed” – there is no pressure and no competition with anyone else in class.

In the Improver classes, this section will see many prolonged body weight exercises, more repetitions, more resistance and strengthening with little breaks in between each series. These classes are not suitable for those with complex health issues, active injury, mobility issues or with no previous experience of Pilates.

• Cool-off

You’ve now reached the last section of the class. The aim is to encourage mobility of your joints and flexibility of your muscles as well as to recover from the more strenuous section of the class. We often add in some breathwork focus to allow the body to wind-down. Stretches tend to be held for longer duration, many variations are provided to suit different body types and abilities.

OsteoPilates Cornwall classes are diverse in their approach and Heather frequently undertakes Pilates development courses, online research and practises different sports and exercise to be able to bring a round experience to Pilates. This helps with keeping classes fresh, interesting and challenging enough for each group.

If you would like to attend Pilates classes, you can now book and manage all of your classes online. Simply click the link here: BOOK NOW