A couple of my teen clients are getting great training — for very different areas of their lives.
One is a 17-year-old dancer. She’s been dancing since elementary school and is just about to graduate from high school. She has danced with many different groups, performing or competing, ranging from Scottish and Irish to Jazz and ballet. She also enjoys many sports, and uses her Pilates training for everything she does.
Another teen client, a 17-year-old female, trained with me before she left home for the United States Air Force basic military training. During USAF training she told her mom she had been using the techniques. She has found a Pilates class on the base where she has moved to for tech school. She discovered how useful Pilates had been while going through one of the world’s toughest 7.5 weeks on the planet.
They both have benefited from some of the basics of Pilates that can help anyone of any age — particularly middle-age and older people. Their core (abdominal and back) muscles are stronger.
They know how to breathe and engage their core muscles so they don’t become injured, and, most importantly, they know how to focus on what muscles should be engaged before they do their very different moves – how engaging their core is going to help the use of their other muscles to perform these different moves.
I honestly don’t think I could have predicted having such powerful teenage clients when I became a Pilates instructor more than 17 years ago. I also could not have predicted the way FaceTime makes Pilates so easy for my clients. They don’t have to pack their gear. They don’t have to drive anywhere. They don’t have to care how they look. They don’t have to drive home.
For busy teens in any type of training, from football to tennis and absolutely everything in between, Pilates training delivers added benefits to help them stay healthy, move better, and have a real competitive edge through breathing and engaging before pushing, pulling or lifting. It makes my heart sing to know these two young ladies will have tools to use as they develop into adults. Eventually, as they are blessed with long lives and begin to age, they will stay healthier longer, have fewer injuries, and be stronger than their peers without Pilates techniques under their belts.
