Saved from the Sidelines

An adventurous personal trainer finds her footing through Pilates

by Michelle Wallace

Like many, I came to Pilates with seemingly insurmountable injuries and a long history of trying to mend them. I grew up with a penchant for contact sports, backpacking and climbing tall objects-like cliffs, trees, bridges and buildings-and jumping off them into rivers and lakes and onto neighboring rooftops. From such impacts, I suffered repetitive ankle sprains, chronic knee pain and herniated lumbar discs before I was old enough to vote. I spent so much time in physical therapists' offices that I felt as sidelined from my life as I was from soccer practice and games.

My physical therapy sessions taught me to perceive my injuries as single saboteurs while never attending to the underlying causes of my weak ankles, misaligned knees and compressed discs. I'd find brief respite from my aches, but after multiple reinjuries I gave up on ever being completely pain free. Assuming that I would never totally heal, I continued to jump, run and hike, but with an increased tolerance to pain.

In my sophomore year of college I was served a devastating blow-a severe reinjury to my lower back threatened to immobilize me. Without much faith, I began yet another prescription for physical therapy, but this time my therapist introduced me to Pilates.

When I started, I was always tangled up, trying to translate the verbal instructions and images into physical movement. But once I began to understand the vocabulary in my body, I found a deep joy in pushing through hard workouts, which I always finished with an increased mind-body connection.

With improved core strength and support, I created space between my vertebrae, relieving the pressure on my discs. By strengthening my calf and foot muscles, as well as finding better balance and stability, I ceased spraining my ankles. My knees began tracking properly as I corrected muscular imbalances in my thighs. In my Pilates sessions, I worked through incorrect movement patterns and reeducated my body to function properly as a whole, not as a disjointed collection of injuries. When I finally laced up my running shoes again, I found myself not only pain free but performing better than ever.

Through my own movement journey, I developed the desire to challenge other people through movement. I enrolled in anatomy classes, interned with an athletic trainer and at a physical therapy clinic and earned a personal training certificate. Once I was well into my internships, I was delighted to be submerged in learning but was ultimately dissatisfied with my work. At the gym, I found that most of my clients were paralyzed by fear. They wanted to build beautiful bodies, but would either be afraid of the pain of getting into shape or were scared to work specific muscle groups, for fear of bulking up. I wasn't able to teach my clients anything; I was only ensuring that they worked out.

I realized that I had traded the integrated work, which had set me on my own healing path, for a piecemeal approach. I was treating the body in parts, never addressing the person as a whole. That's when I decided to return to the integrity of Pilates and become a certified instructor.

Now, I find immense value in my work. My new students often start out intimidated and nervous as they struggle to produce the odd movements and refined corrections I ask of them. But they are rewarded (and I am as well) when they begin to progress through the exercises and, as a result, return from the sidelines of their own lives: When I watch them stay fit through pregnancy, achieve the strength to return to their favorite sport or just get into shape, it feels as good as my first day back in my running shoes.

Michelle Wallace is certified through Power Pilates and now teaches at Reach Pilates Studio in Palo Alto, California. She's also a freelance writer who runs and hikes often.