The Primal Moves class is designed to complement Pilates movement by focusing on increasing one’s joint mobility and strength without the assistance of equipment or props. Instead, using bodyweight movements, animal inspired locomotion, mobility exercises and gravity as a tool.
Benefits:
- – Stronger and more resilient bones and joints
- – Better and faster recovery times from injuries
- – Prehabilitation and Injury Mitigation
- – Increase in strength, flexibility and mobility
- – Better coordination and agility
- – Greater confidence in interacting with the environment
The class will have regressions and progressions, so that you can work according to your level safely while having fun and challenging yourself.
Mobility
The difference between flexibility and mobility is whether you can get in and out of the same movement actively (without the help of a prop, other person or gravity). Try this, bring your leg towards your head with the help of your hands and arms. Now try to lift your leg towards your head without any help. The first range you had, was your flexibility, AKA your passive range of motion. The second range was your mobility, AKA your active range of motion. In this class, we do exercises to close the gap between the two, as that gap is where the potential for injury lives. The greater control you have over your available passive ranges, the less chances of injury.
Locomotion
If you wanted an efficient exercise that works on coordination, balance, strength, core strength, cardio, and joint health, locomotion (i.e. variations of crawling and floor transitions) is great. While sitting is not inherently bad, we tend to do it for long periods of time, which makes our body very good at sitting. This means that our bodies are not as ready to move in other ways. Locomotion creates an opportunity for your body to move in ways that your body does not throughout the day, creating resilience, strength and familiarity in your body to more ways of moving. This will translate to being able to walk, climb stairs, hike, dance, etc with greater ease.
Body-weight Movements
There are two things we physically manipulate in the world, our own bodies and the environment. Learning how to control and manipulate our own bodies and weight helps us be able to move through and manipulate the environment better (e.g. carrying your luggage, carrying your child, pushing a trolley, carrying a basket, climbing the stairs, house chores). We use body-weight movements in this class to increase strength, awareness and control in our body.