How to Apply Biomechanical Reasoning in the Pilates Studio

You've learned the principles. Now let's use them.

The Hidden Mechanics of Pilates is the companion workshop to Building Strength Through Biomechanics.

The ebook gives you the foundation:

 force, torque, levers, moment arms, mechanical load, and the variables that change what an exercise asks the body to do.

This workshop takes those concepts and puts them into the context you actually teach in:

Pilates.

Because understanding what a moment arm is is one thing.

Being able to look at an exercise and think:

“If I change this position, I've changed the mechanical demand.”

is another.

That's the skill we're practicing here.

$129

Stop asking, “What exercise should I give them?”

It's an easy place to start. A client wants stronger legs, so you find a leg exercise. Someone wants better core strength, so you find a core exercise. Someone needs a progression, so you find something that looks harder. 

 

But I think there's a more useful question:

What am I actually trying to change?

 

From there, we can ask:

What movement are we trying to improve?

What is the load?

Where is the load coming from?

What happens if the load wins?

 

Those questions give us a way to look underneath the exercise itself. And that's what this workshop is about.

From biomechanics concepts to Pilates exercises

If you've worked through Building Strength Through Biomechanics, you've already learned the foundational concepts.

Now we're going to use them.

We'll look at familiar Pilates exercises and explore how changing variables of a movement change the demands of a movement

variables such as:

Spring tension

Body position

Foot position

Lever length

Range of motion

Speed

Support

These three questions become a simple way to start analyzing an exercise without immediately jumping to:

“What muscle is this working?”

The three questions we'll keep coming back to:

 What is the load?

What forces are acting on the body?

 Where is the load coming from?

Gravity? Springs? An external object? The ground? The person's own body?

What happens if the load wins?

What movement does that force tend to produce?

We'll use concepts including:

Force

Gravity

Springs

Force vectors

Moment arms

Torque

But this isn't a biomechanics vocabulary lesson.

This isn't meant to be something you watch passively.

Throughout the recording, I'll ask you to pause the video and work through several activities yourself.

You'll practice:

01

identifying external loads

02

mapping force direction

03

predicting what happens if the load wins

04

changing one variable at a time

05

identifying what changed mechanically

06

applying the same reasoning to different Pilates exercises

The question throughout is:

Why is this useful when I'm teaching Pilates?

What I want you to be able to do afterward:

I don't want you to leave this workshop with another list of exercises to memorize. I want you to be able to look at an exercise you've never taught before and think:

“I have a pretty good idea what this is asking the body to do.”

And then:

“I know what I could change if I wanted to change that demand.”

That's the part of biomechanics I find useful. Not knowing more anatomy facts. Knowing how to use the information to make better decisions.

$129

What you'll get in the recorded workshop:

🎥 2-hour recorded workshop

Watch whenever it works for you. Pause, rewind, and come back to sections as often as you like.

🧠 Biomechanics applied to Pilates

We'll take concepts from Building Strength Through Biomechanics and use them to analyze actual Pilates exercises.

✏️ Guided activities

You'll be prompted throughout the recording to pause and work through exercises yourself.

🔎 A mechanical reasoning framework

You'll repeatedly return to:

What is the load?
Where is the load coming from?
What happens if the load wins?

♻️ A different way to think about progressions and regressions

Rather than simply asking whether an exercise is “harder” or “easier,” we'll look at what mechanical demand has actually changed.

Where does this fit into the AOP Pathway? 

This workshop is designed to be the second step in the Anatomy of Pilates biomechanics pathway.

BUILDING STRENGTH THROUGH BIOMECHANICS

The Ebook

Learn the principles.

Understand mechanical load, force, torque, levers, moment arms, and the variables that influence demand.

THE HIDDEN MECHANICS OF PILATES

The workshop

Apply the principles.

Use those concepts to analyze Pilates exercises and understand why changing variables changes mechanical demand.

From principles to practice

The mentorship

Apply the reasoning to real people.

Take the concepts into real client problems, formulate hypotheses, manipulate movement, observe responses, and make programming decisions.

Each step takes you a little further from knowing the information and a little closer to being able to use it.

Is this workshop for you?

This is probably for you if:

  • you've worked through Building Strength Through Biomechanics and want to see the concepts applied to Pilates
  • you know the repertoire but want to understand the mechanics underneath it
  • you find yourself asking why changing a spring, position, or lever changes an exercise
  • you want to get better at analyzing exercises you've never taught before
  • you want a framework for thinking about mechanical demand
  • you want to move beyond “what muscle does this work?” as your primary way of analyzing an exercise

This probably isn't for you if you're looking for:

  • a list of the “best” Pilates exercises
  • muscle activation techniques
  • a collection of cues
  • protocols for specific diagnoses
  • an exercise library
  • a certification in assessment

Ready to look at Pilates a little differently?

THE HIDDEN MECHANICS OF PILATES

How to Apply Biomechanical Reasoning in the Pilates Studio

2-hour recorded workshop