Personal Training and Associated Therapies
Potting Shed Pilates Instructors.
Our instructors are all fully qualified with a minimum of four years experience. Please check out the Team profiles from the Walled Garden home page for further details.
What is Pilates exactly?
Joseph Pilates was born in 1880 in a small town in Dusseldorf, Germany. His father was a prize winning gymnast of Greek origin ("pilatu") and his mother, a German woman who believed in stimulating the body in order to heal itself. Joseph was a very sick child, who suffered many illnesses in his childhood. He was bullied as a child and was so weak and skinny that he was unable to fight back in order to protect himself. It was because of this that he began his life-long journey into fitness & health.
Joseph created an exercise concept whose ideal was to be equally balanced in body, mind and spirit, believing that our modern life-style, bad posture and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health. His answer to these problems was to design a unique series of life-enhancing physical exercises that help to correct muscular imbalances and improve posture, co-ordination, balance, strength and flexibility, as well as to increase breathing capacity and organ function.
Why do Pilates?
By using various functional & low resistance exercises, we can all strengthen and lengthen our muscles and joints, as well as releasing unwanted stress & tension. Targeting the shoulders, hips, back and all abdominals, to name but a few, this means we are all less likely to suffer neck, shoulder & lower back pain. These exercises will compliment any other existing programme or training sessions, whether you choose Pilates for fitness, sport, family health or work-related problems, be sure to know it is not a fitness fad. If practised regularly, Pilates is very successful- it works and works brilliantly and is now recommended by most Doctors, Physiotherapists and Osteopaths alike.
If you are a keen sports enthusiast, then Pilates can help improve your sports performance by recognising, improving and correcting any muscle imbalance caused from excessive repetition, such as tennis or golf movements.
Pilates gives:
Improved performance in sports
A way of preventing Injury
An effective compliment to other exercise regimes
Increased energy
Reduced stress
Increased strength, especially the abdominal & back muscles
Increased body tone & definition
A longer, leaner look
Improved balance
Improved posture
More freedom of movement
Heightened body awareness
Improved digestion
A more effective absorption of oxygen
Better circulation
Enhanced immune system
Better co-ordination
Improved muscle flexibility
A general sense of well-being
An improved sex life
What different kinds of Pilates classes are available?
Pilates for the complete beginner, introducing you to the main principles of Pilates. Suitable for both men & women.
Intermediate Pilates, introducing props to challenge your strength & stability. Taking Pilates to another dimension.
Seniors’ Pilates. This class is specifically for the more mature ladies & gents to help develop and restore the strength and mobility in joint movement that is so essential to maintain our normal daily activities. As we mature our spinal and joint fluids can become very dry and static resulting in making some movement often uncomfortable & restricted. This class can help alleviate some of the pain associated with arthritis and sciatica. Learn very basic exercises that that if practised regularly will make a huge difference to your everyday activity.
Standing Pilates is encouraged in all classes as standing is our most functional every day activity.
Timetable from January 2007. This is subject to change with demand.
Monday 8.30am 9.45am 11.00am 12.15pm Pregnancy tbc 6.45pm Seniors 8.00pm
Tuesday 2.30pm 6.15pm Pregnancy
Wednesday
Thursday 9.30am 10.45am 12noon 2.00pm
Friday 10.45am 12noon Seniors 5.30pm
Saturday 9.00 from 8.30am
Other classes available at various times by demand.
Pregnancy: the before & after. Pregnancy for most is a wonderful physical challenge of a life time. Current research is increasingly demonstrating that exercise, healthy diet and sufficient rest will give you the stamina to cope with pregnancy, labour and aid your recovery. With this in mind, it would be sensible to practise Pregnancy Pilates in an environment that provides safe and effective exercises, appropriate for each stage of pregnancy. This will not only allow you special ‘time out’ to de-stress, it will also ensure that you get the personal attention that you deserve. See article on homepage.
Potting Shed Pilates at The Walled Garden
This new & exclusive Pilates studio is situated at the bottom of the Edwardian Walled Garden, dating back to the early 1900s. In keeping with its original structure, we have decided to name it Potting Shed Pilates. The tranquil surroundings provide the perfect, peaceful backdrop to enable you to get the very best out of your Pilates session.
Personal attention is our main aim here at the walled garden, so we are offering Pilates as one-to-one sessions or very small exclusive classes, maximum of five people.
Contact us
e-mail: tonis_pilates@hotmail.co.uk
tel: 00447776256774