Caution As a new member of MyPilatesClub it is very important to understand that exercise of any kind must be considered seriously before commencement. For your own health and safety it is vital to appreciate your own limitations and to consult a qualified physician before starting any new exercise activity if you are in any way concerned about your ability to handle the exercise or if you have pre-existing health issues or injuries. Remember – if in doubt at all at any time – consult your doctor.

How to Begin So where should you begin in your journey with MyPilatesClub? The Site Tour video in the Home section is helpful to get a feel for the basics of navigating around what the site has to offer. Although the site will constantly grow and the tour isn’t intended to give you precise recommendations about how you should approach the development of your health and wellness. The process we recommend you follow is summarised in the 12 points below:

1. Keep in touch with changes to the Club site. We will try and keep you informed regularly by email about what is being added and changed to your Club site. However, it is best for you to keep in close contact with the site and tour through it regularly too. Make sure www.mypilatesclub.com is saved to the favourites section on your internet browser. It may also be helpful to you to save the News Feed page as a favourite bookmark and get into the habit of using the news pages from there, so you are accustomed to keeping in touch with the Club site. That way you are less likely to miss out on anything new on offer for you. Remember we are also adding tools for you to use to aid your development, so using these will both help your progress and keep you in the know about the latest on offer for you at www.mypilatesclub.com.

2. Learn about the Pilates method. Study the material in the About Pilates section of the site.

3. Understand your body. Read up on any conditions that affect your body in the Body Wise categories in the Resources section of the site.

4. Learn about your Core. It is very important to appreciate how your body functions and the relevance of building in core stability as the firm foundation to the development of your body. There is really useful content about your Core in the Guiding Principles section of the site.

5. Appreciate the miracles of your form. Some students may not consider this essential for them, but we believe that to really achieve the best results for your body (and your whole self) it is very helpful to understand some of the amazing details about our anatomy. How our muscles and joints function, the relationship with the spine and pelvis, the brain and our reflexes, etc. We will be adding concise and straightforward articles and information on various aspects of the human body and movement. Have a regular look at the Resources section. This is something you may wish to keep coming back to, in order to learn more over time.

6. Prepare your mind and body. Look through the Healthy Life section of the site. Here you will learn about all the important issues of a healthy lifestyle. No one’s saying life can’t be fun – so there’s NO starvation diets or crazy fad diets promoted here. Just sound advice about nutrition and great recipe suggestions for some fantastic food. We will be adding advice about mental preparation, motivation, relaxation (very important), massage, and more…

7. Prepare to exercise. You’re roaring ahead now! Jump over to the Coaching section of the site. We start you off here with some advice about getting ready to start your exercise programme.

8. Exercise from the beginning. We cannot emphasize this enough! Start at the start! DO NOT jump in to exercise routines part way into the programme. You may be reasonably fit. You may do other exercises and sports. But all exercise programmes are different and our bodies need to develop from the core in order to get the right results and without doing ourselves harm. Please be patient; starting from the basics and moving steadily forward is the right way to achieve that agile, lean, muscular toned body. There are NO short-cuts.

Start by familiarizing yourself with the basic fundamental moves and techniques. The Coaching section includes some great videos on the fundamental principals to help you. Practice these for at least a week and return to them frequently to check (and correct) your technique. We all get into bad habits. Don’t underestimate how helpful it is to keep going back to this section.

9. Start your programme. The next step is to move forward with the exercise programme appropriate to you. You will have subscribed at one of the three levels: Pilates Spine Care, Beginners Pilates or Improvers Pilates. Access to each video session will be emailed to you periodically to lead you through the course. Read the description of each coaching video to begin with. Play it all the way through a couple of times and then start to follow the routine through yourself all the way through. We understand you may have to pause the video and check back a few times initially. Everyone does – but it’s important to follow all the way through the routine each time you practice. It will get easier to follow each time. Unless the individual video coaching instructions say otherwise, always practice each video session 3 to 4 times per week preferably for two weeks. Only then – if you feel confident – should you move on to the next coaching video in the programme, access to which will be emailed to you.

10. Additional Coaching. As you gain confidence with the basics, look over the descriptions to the Extra Video Classes for inspiration and further variety. Pay close attention to the descriptions however. They will make clear what level you need to be at before you should take these on. For example, the ‘Coffee Break Restorative’ coaching video is a great routine for students of all levels to include in their overall programme. Other video coaching sessions will be more difficult and suited only to more advanced students.

11. Follow the programme. After carefully working through the first coaching video, follow on to the second, access to which will be confirmed by email to you and triggered automatically as part of the learning programme. Progress along the course will be timed throughout by the delivery of email links to the next video class.  You will always need to be logged in to your membership account online to view the videos. Each video should be practised until the next arrives, which will be around 14 day intervals depending on the nature of each lesson and the level you have achieved in your training. As stated above, unless the individual video coaching description says otherwise, always practice each video session 3 to 4 times per week preferably for two weeks or until the next video class is released to you . If when the next video class email link arrives, you feel you have mastered the previous routine and are fluid and in full control of your body throughout the last session, consider moving on to the next video. If you do not feel confident with a coaching level after two weeks, you may have slipped from the correct technique of the basic principals. Practice these again and repeat the current level for a few more days or as long as necessary before moving on to the next lesson.

12. Have breaks. It is good to have days off without practising any exercise routine. This is refreshing mentally and physically. We only advocate practising 3-4 times per week. It is also best not to pack all your training days into one end of a week. Try exercising on alternate days if you can. Occasionally, you may find you do not feel confident at a coaching level and having a couple of days off can be the surprising answer. Coming back to it can then seem to make all the difference.