PTM School: Day 2 – More Sweat!

So, what does an hour with Maddy at Pilates Train Me do for you?

After my first session I went about my normal day. But by the evening I felt as though I’d done something different as I had a different type of feeling in my legs. I can’t say they ached, they didn’t. They weren’t throbbing or sore, but it felt like something deep inside them was waking up. It was very subtle but definitely there.

The next morning too I had a feeling of having done something with my shoulders. Nothing really of any great consequence, but definitely something was going on!

I was back at PTM School on Monday for another 1-2-1 with Maddy.

The school is set on the first floor of a small retail precinct in Maiden Place, Lower Early. It’s all a bit odd going back as when I was 18 I had a very short term job in the long-gone delicatessen shop opposite from where the studio is so it is familiar territory for me.

Rachel and Sarah have a compact, but very well equipped Pilates School over one floor. There is matted class area, an area with the Cadillac and Reformer machines and a small area with the chairs I experienced in my first session.

It was here that Maddy got me to go first.

I wasn’t going to be the namby-pamby-going-slow version of me that she’d seen the last time and I concentrated really hard on squeezing ankles, feeling the ground, drawing my thighs open and lengthening the back of my legs…I was sweating!

Whilst this was challenging I felt I was able to do it. However I then had to do a move to work the flexibility of my ankle. Well…what flexibility became the question of the moment.

Me – “I can’t move it”

Maddy – “Just a little, push your heel down”

Me – “I cant move it!”

Maddy – *look of shock and horror* “we’ll need to get you on foot corrector very soon”

Following my amazing performance here we then moved to the reformer. A long bed like piece of apparatus with a moving seat that slides horizontally. She had me standing and lying and putting my feet in stirrups and perching and grabbing and sliding and lengthening and drawing in and breathing, don’t forget breathing.

Some moves I was definitely better at here ( I think), but one exercise had Maddy heaving my 13 stone bulk back up to vertical in an inelegant display of lack of control.

I was to sit on the reformer, draw my knees into my chest with my legs together and place a bar under my feet that I then grabbed hold of with both hands. So I was in a very compact position, knees and thighs into body, bar under feet, bar kept there by me holding on. Imagine a bird on a branch, but with arms to keep it there 🙂

Keeping like this I was to roll back onto the mat and then back up again by driving down my feet onto the bar. Well, readers who were born in the 70s will appreciate this when I say that I was a weeble that wobbled, unfortunately I never got up and had to be shoved into place 😀

The second visit left me very sweaty and definitely knowing that I’d used some deep, deep muscles usually quite happy to be asleep. I still had frustration for not being able to GET IT. But Maddy was great at telling me what to do, where to work and how to change things to get the best result.

I felt I used more muscles today, so I shall be interested to see how I feel tomorrow.

My next session is a group mat class, I’m hoping that I’ll be a bit better at that.