Beginners should not start at the hundred.
Pilates instructor Yvonne Bray cautions that the pilates exercise commonly used as a warm-up in fitness classes and studios across the country is an intermediate sequence that beginners should approach with practice and supervision. Otherwise, warns Bray, the exercise benefits will be mitigated and injury risk will be elevated.
"You don't learn the hundred in the beginning. It's not a beginner exercise. It takes huge integration in the body to be able to perform hundreds," she said, quoting Margot McKinnon, a widely respected pilates studio owner and teacher trainer in Toronto who founded Body Harmonics where Bray recently completed an intensive training program.
The hundred is comprised of 16 fundamental elements but is deceptively simple and straightforward. Although it may look like a run-of-the-mill core-strengthening sit-up, the hundred requires correct body alignment, muscle and breath co-ordination and neck support.
A common mistake, says Bray, is not properly holding the head, which she says should be like a dead-weight resting in the hands. "If you took your hands away, your head would drop. Don't pull on your head, don't use your neck muscles whatsoever."
Lock your fingers and support your head, not by levering it skyward but by making sling, a hand-held hammock for your head. "If you can't do that, you shouldn't be doing hundreds. It is hard but therein lays the difference between being taught properly and not," Bray said.
Mairin Wilde agrees and added, "I wouldn't say that's specific just to the hundred. I would say that probably could be said about a lot of pilates that is taught."
Wilde, owner of the Vancouver Pilates Centre, said, "Any pilates exercise or any exercise for that matter should be approved for the individual and assessed for that individual's specific level."
The hundred, which Joseph Pilates incorporated into his classical method in New York and Germany in the 1920s, is an example Bray uses to voice her concern about the unregulated escalation of yoga and pilates teacher training programs across North America and expansion of studios that hire those teachers.
"It's buyer be aware, buyer beware," said Bray, who opened Pacific Spirit Pilates on Granville Street last year and recommends all new clients be individually assessed by any instructor they intend to practise with regardless of class size. She favours one-on-one instruction and doesn't teach group classes large than six. She acknowledges the cost of private classes can be prohibitive but said, "You get what you pay for."
The practice of yoga was reevaluated in January when the New York Times ran an article stating, "How yoga can wreck your body" and profiled the author of an upcoming book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards, which details injuries, including hyper-tension, neck and back damage and even stroke.
Based on responses from 1,336 yoga teachers and therapists, the International Journal of Yoga Therapy found the most injuries centred on the neck, lower back, shoulders, wrist and knee and tied them to specific poses.
An ambitious worldwide study by Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons that same year revealed a similar trend.
The Times article cut to the chase about the egotistical element of yoga, a point Bray also makes.
"What disturbs me is that people are pushing through pain. I'm not saying don't do yoga, I think yoga is fabulous and I do yoga, [.] but the training is lacking in a lot of cases," she said. "An instructor may have a following of students who loves them but that doesn't mean they're not doing harm."
Said Wilde, "A weekend course is not going to do it. People really have to learn how to ask questions and become informed consumers. They'll do extensive research on the latest tech gizmo, but when it comes to their own bodies, they will go to the closest place around the corner because it's convenient."
Bodies are more important, said Wilde, "And not replaceable in the same way."
Twitter: @MHStewart
