Category Archives: News

Professional Performance From Balanced Body

About Our Balanced Body Pilates Equipment

When Your Pilates Lifestyle was still in the planning stage, I’d already decided I wanted Balanced Body Reformers to train my future students on. Their story of success continues to inspire and motivate.

Balanced Body founder Ken Endelman kept saying no to custom equipment requests right up until he became the world’s largest supplier of Pilates equipment to studios and for private use. The story about the California native, who grew up just outside of Los Angeles and now lives in Sacramento, credits a life-long interest in working with his hands for the company’s current success.

From Waterbeds to Reformers

Endelman was building frames for a waterbed company in the mid-‘70s that was on its way down when a customer first asked him to create a Pilates reformer for her personal practice. He agreed, without giving it much thought.

After finally taking a look at the apparatus he’d agreed to reproduce, which he’d put off as long as he could, he saw plenty of room for improvement, and the enterprise that began as a series of one-at-a-time orders for custom equipment today sits leads the pack of manufacturers of professional Pilates machines.

Built to Last A Lifetime

Balanced Body equipment reflects the founder’s reputation as a builder of fine furniture, from the doweled joinery of the reformer to the rock maple, one of the hardest woods available, used for the frame. The glued dowel joinery keeps the frames perfectly aligned for a lifetime of hard, everyday use.

Watch How Balanced Body Reformers Come To Life

Attention to detail and nearly indestructible construction are the hallmarks of Balanced Body’s professional line of Pilates apparatus.

In the nearly five decades the company’s been in business, Engelman has accumulated 28 separate patents for Balanced Body Pilates equipment, including the Revo Springbar reformer adjuster that maintains constant spring tension for the carriage in various seating configurations. This is why when you work out at Your Pilates Lifestyle, you’re working out on the best equipment available.

Exercise For Safe Pain Relief

NIH Studies Pain Relief Alternatives

NIH alt pain relief

Fresh Look At Non-Addictive Methods of Pain Relief

NBC News reports that the National Institute of Health, after an extensive review of alternative methods of pain relief including acupuncture, tai chi, massage, meditation, and yoga, has found that those and other procedures can be just as effective as opioids in relieving symptoms.

The study, which looked at 16,000 patients, focused on the role pain relievers play in our daily lives, and whether or not other approaches could deliver relief without the threat addiction poses when using pharmacological remedies.

Researchers examined the three most common pain complaints: arthritic knees, neck, and lower back, and concluded that, in the case of lower back pain, yoga and acupuncture provided substantial relief. Even though Pilates wasn’t mentioned, I’m assuming that had it been included as a part of the study we’d have been well represented as being both safe and effective.

The research also looked at supplements like glucosamine, and found them to be ineffective in achieving any significant change in joint health, let alone pain relief.

This study began as an effort to find a solution to increasingly common opioid addiction as a result of commonly prescribed pain relief medications, and ended up discovering that safe and effective alternatives, including centuries old exercise based on ancient beliefs, can perform as well or better than modern pharmaceuticals.

This Client Really Gets A Workout!

Ana rides her bike - weather permitting - to every workout

Ana’s Portuguese heritage is right at home as she cycles around the Beaches and mid-Pinellas, doubling up on her Pilates workout benefit by riding to the studio from her Madeira Beach home.

Making The Most of Every Pilates Session

Ana – “Tita” to her friends – is one of my favorite clients. This Lisbon, Portugal, native and former pro basketball player loves our weather and enjoys riding her bike the short distance to the studio from her nearby Madeira Beach home whenever she can.

Ana estimates she rides 20-plus miles daily. Typical trips include the grocery, banking business, and checking her mail at the beach post office, all part of her route around town.

The 2-wheeled commute to her weekly YPL workouts means crossing the intracoastal waterway, with its panoramic post card view of Boca Ciega Bay in front, the Gulf of Mexico behind, and a steady stream of leisure boat traffic passing below the Tom Stuart Causeway bridge draw span.

Ana works out with her friend during a YPL mat class.

Exercise Bonus – A Ride With A View

Not only does Ana add more international flavor to the studio, her Pilates enthusiasm can be contagious. Just ask her workout partner and local friend Vinkica after they teamed up for Classical mat sessions (above). And yes, it is all about the abs! Note the extra challenge holding the ball between the knees.

Although riding bikes for general transportation is much more common in Europe, Ana says she enjoys it here more than when she travels home to Portugal several times a year. She likes that she’s saving gas, helping the environment, and improving her health with this pleasant exercise every time she heads out the door.

While in the U.S. her travels include trips north to Tallahassee to visit her son, currently a business and finance major at Florida State University. Meanwhile her daughter helps run the family’s businesses back home in Portugal.

Pilates Happy Dance

Bluebird Pilates Does The Happy Dance

Some of you might have already seen this but it’s just soooo cool!!! Makes me happy – how about you? Who says Pilates can’t affect your daily outlook on life.

How To Do The Pilates Pushup

Why Pilates Pushups Are Superior to Gym Half Measures

Did you know that there’s a big difference between a regular run-of-the-mill gym pushup and a Pilates pushup? Well, there is! This video, from Brooke Siler, one of the best known Pilates teachers, perfectly demonstrates correct Pilates form.

This Pilates Floor Exercise Works Arms, Chest, Back

Body weight strength exercises are increasingly popular for fitness on the run and as part of a regular routine. This style of pushup goes well beyond the typical butt-in-the-air half dip many mistake for exercise, but in reality falls far short to the point of being counter-productive.

Once you’re able to make Pilates pushups part of your fitness routine, you’ll find you’ve become more flexible, stronger, and more limber. Try just one today, then start building up to a set of 10.

Happy New Year 2014!

stay warm with PilatesPilates keeps you warm on the coldest days!

It’s a brand new year and those resolutions are still warm even if the weather outside isn’t! Make this the year you make fitness part of your daily routine.

How Stress Might Affect You

Stress Affects Everyone Differently

We all live with stress in our daily lives – sometimes more, sometimes less. Do you know what that means in terms of your physical well being?

The American Institute of Stress looks at changes that occur to the body when you’re under stress. All the more reason to exercise, breathe deeply, and calm both mind and body.

Here's how everyday stress can affect your body.

American Institute of Stress