“OMG! This feels so good!! I love them!” That is what everyone says – men and women alike – after just the FIRST occasion using the Pilates4Fitness FootWheels. They were designed as a compact tool to provide fluid movement while challenging the core and balance. As one observing teacher commented jokingly, “Pilates was too easy, so you just had to kick it up a notch!?”
The construct of the FootWheel was designed for use in my small group classes in the studo. Two, 9×9-inch surfaces are cushioned with a sticky mat creating the FootWheel.
Inspired by and very similar to the Pilates Orbit, as shown here and demonstrated by Tali in a private apparatus session, the size differential makes the FootWheels much easier to control for most students. While each class may begin and end using the FootWheel in a standing posture; with one’s foot on the surface board, the tool can also be used with your hands and thus easily provides a total-body, fluid-movement workout. After her first 30-minute “intro” class session (which took place during the month of August 2013), Lee Tenhoeve, a regular Beginner Mat student, reported that she felt her “legs, glutes and abs in a new way and unlike any other class ever taken! The openness you feel as a result of the fluid movement is an even better result than the aching muscles you know you’ve worked hard.”
[blockquote blockquote_style=”quote” align=”right” text_align=”right”]the openness you feel as a result of the fluid movement is an even better result than the aching muscles you know you’ve worked hard.[/blockquote]
Pilates Apparatus or Mat students, as well as newcomers to body-weight resistance training, will find the use of the Pilates4Fitness FootWheels a perfect compliment as well as a transitional tool to TRX Suspension. The design of the class utilizes classic Pilates exercises that students already know in their body, for example, Rollup, Swan, Mermaid, Plank, Push Up. Or on the reformer, exercises such as, Stomach Massage, Knee Stretches, Long Back Stretch, Snake & Twist can all be accomplished with a new and different twist using the Pilates4Fitness FootWheels.
As a result, core strength is challenged differently, new muscle fibers are recruited and the body responds to the change with delight and glee!
[blockquote blockquote_style=”quote” align=”right” text_align=”right”]Challenging and fun exercise. I loved it because it gets a lot accomplished![/blockquote] TRX Students report that they find the FootWheels provide a “different challenge” and actually help them refine their work, as all the moves they are familiar with, e.g, the Plank-PushUp-Pike and Reverse Plank series, for example, are executed with a smooth and very fluid action with the use of the FootWheels. In other words, all students will find a new way to mindfully engage the core to accomplish any instructed exercise. Lunges take on a new fluid “swing” with the use of the wheels, facilitating an open, lengthening and rotational stretch through the hips, glutes and legs.
As always, quality in the movement is sought versus quantity of repetitions. Generally 5-8 reps of each exercise is more than enough for any of the sequenced movements. As Lee observed, “the class moves along steadily from one short burst activity to the next…keeping the body moving and guessing.”
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Gina Jackson, is a classically trained Pilates Teacher and has been teaching along the Gold Coast of Hudson and Bergen County, NJ for the past fifteen+ years.
Certified by Power Pilates of New York, Gina has trained with Master Teachers Bob Liekens, Susan Moran and Brett Howard; loved workshop training with Cary Regan and Blossom Leilani-Crawford and has particularly enjoyed listening to the personal stories as told by Pilates Elders, Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel.
An active teacher and blogger, Gina manages a private personal training business supporting a myriad of clients, teaching all to honor their health, strength and life with the principles of Pilates at its core.