People/Profiles
Restoring the Injured Athlete
client: Dana | personal trainer: Michael Piercy, owner, The Lab | location: West Caldwell, New Jersey
Injury. When Michael Piercy, owner of The Lab (Performance & Sports Science), first met Dana in the summer of 2008, she presented with a rare condition described by doctors as “functional movement disorder.” According to The Lancet Neurology (2012; 11 [3], 250–60), functional movement disorders are included in a wide spectrum of neurological disorders and are difficult to both diagnose and treat.
Focus on Function
Client: George | Personal Trainer: Valentin, owner, Pilates Body by Valentin | Location: Dublin, CA
Weighty issues. George first began working with Valentin in 2006. “He came to me when he was at his maximum weight,” she recalls. “He was waddling around with a pair of bad knees and needed to get the strength to do activities of daily living.”
Success Inside a Health Club
Gayle Winegar, founder and owner of SweatShop Health Club in Saint Paul, Minnesota, sensed Pilates “would be big” in 1994 after her fitness director, Jill Winegar, took classes at Rancho La Puerta.
An Interview with Lolita San Miguel
Seventy-seven-year old master teacher Lolita San Miguel believes in always putting your best foot forward. Toward that end, she teaches Pilates instructors how and why the foot can impact our overall well-being.
Uniting the Industry: Transformation Stories
How can Pilates help clients make critical transitions in their lives? For this issue, we talked to Pilates instructors and their clients about how Pilates training has helped them through times of change.
Reasonable Expectations for Lasting Changes
Kimberly Searl, integrative fitness professional and owner of Mind/Body: Balance, a fitness studio that offers personal training, yoga, Pilates, and coaching services, believes that the path to health and vitality requires patience and time.
Mary Bowen, Part Two
It has been more than five decades since 81-year-old Pilates elder Mary Bowen began working with Joseph Pilates, and she has continued to develop and grow her own distinctive and charismatic style ever since.
The Corporate Connection
client: QuinStar Technology Inc.
personal trainer: Connie Morrill
location: Torrance, California
Crossing into corporate. Prior to transitioning into a fitness career in 1983, personal trainer Connie Morrill spent 20 years as a professional dancer. In 2004 she made another career shift. “I had a client who owned a business, and she asked if I would work with her employees,” recalls Morrill. “I taught them how to develop their own workout programs, and I touched a bit on eating and how to make time to take care of themselves.”
The Late Bloomer
client: Emmett
personal trainer: Kurt Gillon, Workout Anytime
location:Decatur, Georgia
From Fitness Entrepreneur to Master Instructor Trainer
“Movement saved my life,” says PJ O’Clair, owner of ClubXcel/Northeast Pilates in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. O’Clair started her fitness career teaching jazz dance at 16 years old.
Lineage Links: Mary Bowen, Part 1
First-generation master teacher Mary Bowen is a Pilates treasure. At 81, she still shares her distinctive blend of Pilates and Jungian psychoanalysis with students as a full-time practitioner, calling her combined approach Pilates Plus Psyche.
Uniting the Industry: Transformation Stories
Can the group Pilates experience provide substantial benefits to clients? Nothing speaks louder than results! For this issue, we asked Pilates instructors and their clients to talk about the transformations they’ve experienced from group Pilates classes.
Coping With Crohn’s Disease
client: Ryan
personal trainer: Tony Cress, owner, Tony Cress Personal Training
location: Las Vegas
About Crohn’s disease. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Crohn’s disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease. People with Crohn’s experience mild to severe symptoms that include fever, abdominal pain, fatigue and more. The disease is also associated with loss of appetite and unintentional weight loss.
Figure Competition Training
client: Jillian
personal trainer:Jill Coleman, MS, owner, JillFit Physiques
location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Yearning to compete. More than 3 years ago, Jillian began working as a naturopathic physician at the Naturopathic Health Clinic of North Carolina. While there she met Jill Coleman, owner of JillFit Physiques, who worked with figure competitors in the clinic.
Understanding the Senior Client
clients: Nola and Joe personal trainer: Mary Ann Renzelli location: Bridgeport, West Virginia
Lolita San Miguel’s Living Legacy
“Boundless energy,” “intense creativity” and “an enduring devotion to Pilates” are all phrases that Pilates professionals use in describing Lolita San Miguel. A first-generation master teacher, the 76-year-old San Miguel has taught and inspired Pilates teachers and students for more than 50 years.
The Cancer Survivor’s Champion
Client: Alan
Personal Trainer: Laura Rosencrantz, owner, Inpower™
Location: Portland, Oregon
Assess to Progress
Client: Jim
Personal Trainer: Austin Gregory Johns, CCS, president, San Clemente Health & Fitness Network
Location: San Clemente, California
Quality Assessments. Austin Gregory Johns, CCS, president of San Clemente Health & Fitness Network, is an advocate for fitness assessments. They are necessary to uncover potential limitations, but they also serve to develop trust between client and trainer, he says.
The Weight Loss Crusade
Client: The City of Vicksburg Personal Trainer: Linda Fondren, owner, Shape Up Sisters Location: Vicksburg, Mississippi
Conscious Movement in Relationship to Gravity
Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle, director of the Pilates Center of Austin, is a pioneering voice for Pilates. From her start in yoga in the early 1970s, she plunged into Pilates during the 1990s, studying with first-generation Pilates elders and developing a reputation as a “teacher of teachers.”
