I am pleased to reiterate the difference Omni Pilates has made to my strength and wellness over the past four years. Seven and a half years ago, at age 59, I was in a car wreck that broke my back in four places. I am caged from T12 through L3, and my surgeon told me I would never bend at the waist or twist to the side again. In addition, I suffer sciatica, probably from screws, and persistent pain from scarring from event-related blood clots.
Wanting to come back as much as I could, I began physical therapy as soon as the surgeon would allow and joined a gym as soon as the therapist and my doctors released me. Realizing how important core strength was to minimizing back pain and that persistent stretching (they called it flossing) was my only relief from sciatica, I worked out on land and in water every day the gym was open for nearly two and a half years, at which point I began taking yoga four times a week.
All of this made an amazing difference, but was actually a hit-and-miss approach. I hurt myself from time to time in workouts and yoga. I wasn’t the best judge of my own form and what was safe, and the classes I took couldn’t offer any hands-on individualized attention to form, using the right muscles in the right way, or caution. Omni Pilates’s careful attention and expert instruction has taken my range of motion, balance, and core strength to levels that I hadn't imagined possible. I've long wished I could sit down my surgeon, who is no longer in Lubbock, not only to thank him for the superb job he did in surgery but much more importantly to tell him about machine pilates and to show him what it can accomplish. Really every surgeon should know that an injury like mine need not be as life altering as projected, and I believed for so long.
Pilates—with its emphasis on stabilizing the core, imprinting the back, and the difference small movements (so important to understand!) can make--has enabled me to push the envelope incrementally and safely. I twist. I bend. I compensate, without pain, for every limitation of that tower in my back. In fact, most people can’t believe I have one. Applying the principles and breathing Omni has taught me, I’ve returned to yoga without hurting myself and have mastered poses that most others in my classes, even athletic youngsters, struggle with.
Make no mistake, before my injury I was never athletic or fit. I did not work out. I was sedentary, working at a desk almost all day every day. Eliminating pain was the sole—and most effective--motivator. But Omni Pilates taught me the pleasure, the true joy, of continuing to push the envelope. In 2015 I climbed a zig-zagging ropes course up a rocky riverbed to a mountain waterfall.
When I first looked at the Omni website and saw pictures of someone stretching on the reformer, I thought: never in a million years. Thank goodness Kara persuaded me to come for an assessment. From the very first stretch, I was hooked. I couldn’t believe how safe I felt, how much immediate relief I found from sciatica. What amazes me more is how I continue to see new results.
I love the way I can’t wait to get to the studio in the morning—no matter how I feel when I wake up—and how I’ve never once looked at the clock during a session. I can’t say that about any other form of exercise. I hope every doctor and surgeon can learn what a difference this can make to patients with injuries. I truly believe that if my surgeon had this information, he wouldn’t have focused so much on what he believed my limitations would be. I’d love to have him watch me in class.
If I could make it so, machine Pilates would be a part of integrative medicine—provided, of course, that everywhere it was offered would include the expertise and attention always provided at Omni. You have my unending gratitude.
--Judith Keeling
Wanting to come back as much as I could, I began physical therapy as soon as the surgeon would allow and joined a gym as soon as the therapist and my doctors released me. Realizing how important core strength was to minimizing back pain and that persistent stretching (they called it flossing) was my only relief from sciatica, I worked out on land and in water every day the gym was open for nearly two and a half years, at which point I began taking yoga four times a week.
All of this made an amazing difference, but was actually a hit-and-miss approach. I hurt myself from time to time in workouts and yoga. I wasn’t the best judge of my own form and what was safe, and the classes I took couldn’t offer any hands-on individualized attention to form, using the right muscles in the right way, or caution. Omni Pilates’s careful attention and expert instruction has taken my range of motion, balance, and core strength to levels that I hadn't imagined possible. I've long wished I could sit down my surgeon, who is no longer in Lubbock, not only to thank him for the superb job he did in surgery but much more importantly to tell him about machine pilates and to show him what it can accomplish. Really every surgeon should know that an injury like mine need not be as life altering as projected, and I believed for so long.
Pilates—with its emphasis on stabilizing the core, imprinting the back, and the difference small movements (so important to understand!) can make--has enabled me to push the envelope incrementally and safely. I twist. I bend. I compensate, without pain, for every limitation of that tower in my back. In fact, most people can’t believe I have one. Applying the principles and breathing Omni has taught me, I’ve returned to yoga without hurting myself and have mastered poses that most others in my classes, even athletic youngsters, struggle with.
Make no mistake, before my injury I was never athletic or fit. I did not work out. I was sedentary, working at a desk almost all day every day. Eliminating pain was the sole—and most effective--motivator. But Omni Pilates taught me the pleasure, the true joy, of continuing to push the envelope. In 2015 I climbed a zig-zagging ropes course up a rocky riverbed to a mountain waterfall.
When I first looked at the Omni website and saw pictures of someone stretching on the reformer, I thought: never in a million years. Thank goodness Kara persuaded me to come for an assessment. From the very first stretch, I was hooked. I couldn’t believe how safe I felt, how much immediate relief I found from sciatica. What amazes me more is how I continue to see new results.
I love the way I can’t wait to get to the studio in the morning—no matter how I feel when I wake up—and how I’ve never once looked at the clock during a session. I can’t say that about any other form of exercise. I hope every doctor and surgeon can learn what a difference this can make to patients with injuries. I truly believe that if my surgeon had this information, he wouldn’t have focused so much on what he believed my limitations would be. I’d love to have him watch me in class.
If I could make it so, machine Pilates would be a part of integrative medicine—provided, of course, that everywhere it was offered would include the expertise and attention always provided at Omni. You have my unending gratitude.
--Judith Keeling
