I want to share with you today a few common questions that I get asked frequently around the studio and in the local community:

“Can kids do Pilates and Gyrotonic?”

“At what age should they start?”

“Could my kids sporting team benefit from Pilates and Gyrotonic?”

Let me start by saying YES!!!

We have worked kids as young as 4 and many high school aged kids in our Physical Therapy department in the past. This treatment includes Manual Therapy followed by Pilates and Gyrotonic exercises for every one of them. So in this situation, they are exposed to Pilates and Gyrotonic concepts within the hour long PT session. These concepts can be translated into their other work outs, sports or activities.

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For personal training, we have had kids as young 8 come through the program. Some are athletes, others have scoliosis. That is the beauty of the work!!!
With a few beautiful exercise machines we can work with the injured, the elite athlete, the musician having trouble with playing their instruments that are larger to them, the dancer or the kid that cant seem to stand up straight due to too much technology time.

My 2 boys are currently 7 and 10 years old and they have been playing on the equipment since they were 2 or 3 years old. Notice I said “playing” as that is the key to getting the younger kids participating. I used the Gyrotonic handles to rehab my oldest’s broken arm when he was 4 or 5.

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I have learned of schools teaching Pilates mat work to kids in the 5th grade once a week during PE. These kids starting learning how to use their Pilates breathing during a test or when they were stressed at school. The interviews with the kids of all sizes, races and both boys and girls was truly amazing. Their test scores were also better than previous years when the kids were not exposed to Pilates weekly.

As far as a sporting team benefiting from this kind of strengthening, of course it would be great for them to learn and participate in a program. We have had the wonderful experience of presenting
at the Fit Fest at the Middle School around the corner a few times and are scheduling for the next one at the moment. We have led a Pilates for Kids camp during the summer with 13-15 year old girls, which was really fun to get to know the kids over a 6 week series. If you have an idea that you would like to discuss, hit REPLY and lets chat about it. Presenting at the school, field, club, gym or wherever is always an option that we can explore.

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Last I want to tell you a story that happened this week.

I have a Westlake High senior football player around the studio once a week for the year. Its a great program that allows seniors to get out and see some real life work situations. On his second time in, we had a last minute cancel and not much left for him to observe. He had watched me doing myofascial release as well as train folks on the Pilates and Gyrotonic equipment several times at this point. So I decided to have my Gyrotonic Instructor take him through a hour long session, instead of watch me do paperwork. After it he was shocked at how he felt, how challenging it was (considering it looked easy to him prior) and how different it was than the work outs that they perform with their trainers. I cant wait to talk to him next week and see how he felt the next few days after. We asked if his teammates would enjoy it and he said, only if you could get them to actually try it, which might be hard. The aggressive mindset of current training has created a general frowned upon look towards our mindful and intelligent exercise. I told him that the professionals are using both Pilates and Gyrotonic and the kids should be too.

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