Have you ever found yourself in this predicament - the "in-between"? You are almost healed from an injury and almost ready to go back to your workouts, but not quite? I have this neighborhood buddy who recently emailed me out of the blue. He is in his early 50's, is super active, and loves CrossFit. But he had injured his back and wasn't able to "tear it up at gym," as he called it. So he reached out solely because he knew my background, not because he knew where to go or what to do given his unfamiliar predicament. Luckily we had a Therapeutic Pilates program starting the following week for him. This is an "in-between" program that fills that gap between resting an injured body part and/or rehabilitation such as physical therapy and returning to your favorite fitness activity.

It turns out there is a real need for these in-between programs. We get tons of messages asking for advice on specific injuries or conditions related to people's individual lifestyles. Most of these requests are not studio members. So this shows us there is a broader need not only in our community but across the globe. Mind the Mat is working on something big. A global "In Between" program is in the works. In the meantime, you can see the details of our upcoming Therapeutic Pilates Series here.              

So what do these programs entail? 

An appropriate In Between exercise program should have at least three elements:

1. A Focus on Full Range of Motion: Each joint has a certain amount of normal movement. For example, the shoulder joint has 180° of movement in flexion (sorry, we do have to go back to geometry here). Meaning, that in order to reach your arm over your head, your shoulder joint has to move 180° to perform that function. Another example is traditional glute max exercises, done in squats, lunges, and leg presses, which do not target the full range of motion the glute max muscle produces. In Between programs do.

2.  Stretching and Strengthening the Pertinent Muscle Groups: This is key. I see this everywhere…done wrong. For example, the last thing a new mom needs is to strengthen her biceps muscles. She is already doing that! Holding the baby, lifting the bucket car seat, etc. The focus should be on strengthening the opposite muscles and stretching the biceps. When I was a new mom, I went to a class that focused only on chest and biceps. I never went back.

3. Create an Empowered Mindset: The more we tell people they are broken, the more they believe it. The more we focus on pain and telling people they are in pain, the more pain they complain about. This is a general statement, I realize, but we have come a long way in understanding the science behind pain. Pain is just a message. When it becomes uncontrollable, that system is out of sync, and it is no longer fulfilling its purpose. Empowering people to move without focusing on pain uplifts people to do more. Doing more pain-free is good.

What would the world be like if everyone had access to preventative wellness and exercise programs such as these? Sara and I have been working on how we can package our in-studio specialized programs to serve them up virtually to the masses. More on that later!