Exercise Doesn’t Break Your Back
By Miguel Riera plus Staff
Daily Record - November 8, 2006
Pilates improves flexibility, strength
Denville- Three times a week, Susan Roth comes to Six Degrees of Wellness, a body-conditioning studio, to alleviate a foot injury and to keep fit by taking Pilates classes.
For nearly an hour, the 59-year-old retired teacher and counselor from Mountain Lakes, works out, stretching and strengthening the core muscles of her body.
With the assistance of Pilates instructor, Barbara Hoon, of Florham Park, Roth uses a bed-like device called a reformer to elongate, bend, and exercise her abdomen, buttocks and inner thighs muscles. The reformer is equipped with springs, cushions, bars and resistance features designed specifically for Pilates exercising.
Joseph H. Pilates, a German boxer and performer living in England at the outbreak of World War I, developed the method. Pilates focuses, in part, on mat work (exercises done on the floor) and strengthening the core muscle of the body.
More than 500 exercises and many unique apparatus were developed by Pilates to strengthen the muscles of the buttocks, abdomen and inner thighs. The logic is that the stronger these muscles become, the better support they provide for the spine thereby making it easier to maintain proper posture.
In time, body movement becomes more efficient, helping to develop lean long muscles in the rest of the body.
Six Degrees of Wellness Studio is the creation of Julliard-trained and former Broadway dancer, Barbara Hoon, who after 25 years of studying and using Pilates, decided to share her knowledge and enthusiasm by opening her own studio.
Gaining Strength
When taught correctly, Pilates can improve posture, minimize back pain, and increase strength and flexibility, while giving students a sense of control and improved function in sports and daily activities, Hoon said.
The center offers a variety of Western and Eastern body strengthening disciplines that include, Tai Chi, Yoga and various forms of dance. The holistic approach to health, fitness and sense of well-being gave birth to the name Six Degrees of Wellness, Hoon said.
“Pilates allows you to connect with your body and mind, there is a lot of precision and concentration, it may take some time, but it comes to you; when I found Pilates, I stopped going to the chiropractor, “ Roth said.
Hoon believes her students tend to go to the doctor less and don’t get sick as often.
“If you feel better, you will look better and that is why the tremendous body and mind connection attainable with Pilates is so unique,” she said.
Next door, in a room filled with natural light and painted with light yellow, earthy colors, certified Yoga instructor Karen Noel Linardi teaches students of all ages and skill levels.
Almost anyone can do Yoga, according to Linardi, who said it is really about unity of mind, body and spirit. It can help students increase flexibility and better their overall health.
“This is a way of life and life is not just a journey, it is an awakening,” Linardi said. “Yoga can help people to live a more conscious life.”
English teacher and Denville resident, Catherine Murphy, 64, has been a Yoga aficionado for a few years. She said that there are two reasons why she does Yoga..
“Yoga gives you a sense of well being, it touches your spiritual life and it has helped me to align and strengthen my body, this is truly a holistic experience.” Murphy said.
Linardi said she teaches wherever the work takes her. This flexibility, she said allows her to tailor the classes to the students and not the other way around.
Tailored training
All instructors at Six Degrees try to customize the training to the students, Hoon said.
“In 10 sessions, you will feel better,” Hoon said, “in 20 you will look better and in 30 sessions you will have a whole new body if you do Pilates.”
“There is a misconception about pregnant women and exercising,” said 33-year-old Nancy Buckley of Mountain Lakes.
All throughout her pregnancy, Buckley, an executive for a financial service firm in Manhattan, came to the studio and did Pilates three times a week, stopping only a week before her first son, Jack, was born.
Three months later, she looks slim and athletic.
“I feel great and I think my pregnancy and delivery benefited tremendously from all the exercises,” Buckley said. “I can even fit into my old clothes and that is a pretty good thing,” she said laughing.
Most women, Hoon said, struggle to get rid of those 10 or 20 pounds the body may accumulate during pregnancy. “Pilates can help them lose that extra weight.”
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