Draft ‘October term break 2017’ timetable is subject to change.

These classes will run for 2 WEEKS in our CBD clinic, falling on

Tuesdays 26th September and 3rd October 

and

Thursdays 28th September and 5th October, 2017.

Classes are on offer only for our existing Fix Pilates clients. We have a mixed class scheduled for

• combined beginners/intermediate/advanced classes (called PILATES), and
• pregnancy-specific Pilates (called PREGNANCY PILATES).

Classes are $41 each and must be paid for upfront for the 2 classes, total $82. Receipts will be issued for these 2 weeks for use when claiming with your private health fund provider. Check yours for eligibility.

Find your ‘hip hinge ’

If you’ve had anything to do with a personal trainer, a physio or a gym, you’d certainly have found yourself squatting in some capacity. It is an amazing way to get great bang for your buck when it comes to an all body strengthening exercise.

An excellent squatting technique is essential in so many ways:

• Safe squatting can become a valuable everyday movement pattern for each and everytime the body needs to lower itself towards the ground. Think lifting, sitting and bending required in everyday.
• Squatting is amazing to waken and strengthen important muscles about the pelvic girdle and hip regions. This can include the big powerhouse muscles of the butt and thigh and the deep stabilising muscles about the deep trunk, including deep hip and spinal postural muscle systems.
• Strong legs can strongly underpin the trunk and give your back all the support it needs in everyday activity.
• Good squat technique allows you to be more efficient within the movement, allowing for bigger weights, bigger strength gain and less injury risk.
• Squatting gives your knees great muscular support when done correctly. Perfect you runners and cyclists needing good support and balance about the knees.

This amazing tip borrowed from US physio Zach Long will have you learning the best way to squat. I love it. Making the drill this simple makes you understand the importance of the hip in a safe and effective squat. As we say in class, ‘focus on how far the hips shift back relative to your heels’, or ‘feel the weight in the heels’ or ‘make sure you can see all of your toes over your knees.’

Give this a try:

• Grab a long foam roller, placing it on its long end, just in front of your toes.
• Drop into a squat without your knees translating forward and knocking over the roller.
• Feel and focus on the hip hinge, rather than the knees coming forward.
• Remember all of your safe ‘Pilates cues’ such as maintaining pelvis and spinal neutral, tracking your knees straight towards the third toe, widening through the sit bones, exhaling on the effort or movement.
• Easy!
• Brilliant!

For further reading and training ideas on squatting and the ‘hip hinge’, check out this great blog. Zach has HEAPS of other really cool tips for those of you into your gym and weights.

Read more: www.thebarbellphysio.com/best-hip-hinge-fixes

Raising awareness for women in Africa and the work of doctors Reg and Catherine Hamlin by Tus Jierasak

For most of us, we have most likely never heard of, won’t need to worry about, and definitely won’t experience an obstetric fistula during childbirth. In countries like Australia, it is almost non-existent. Unfortunately, this is not the case everywhere.

Predominantly in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, unimaginable complications during childbirth still frequently occur. These are called obstetric fistulas. A fistula is an abnormal connection between two organs. An obstetric fistula is an abnormal hole that forms a passageway between the vagina and bladder or rectum, which occurs during childbirth. If a woman has an obstructed labor, or a prolonged labor that lasts days, her contractions continue to push the baby’s head against the pubic bone, which causes the soft tissues to become compressed, and not receive any blood flow. This lack of blood flow causes the tissues to die, creating a fistula between her pelvic organs. This is a complication seen only in societies where birthing is done at home, without medical assistance and in very young mothers.

Physically, the obstetric fistula forms a hole, which acts as a passageway between the mother’s vagina and bladder or rectum, leaving her permanently incontinent of urine, faeces, or both, through the vagina. This can further lead to skin infections, kidney disorders, or if left untreated, death. 93% of survivors give birth to a stillborn baby.

Socially, the consequences are devastating. In countries where a woman’s social status and self-esteem depend on her marriage and ability to have children, women are abandoned by their husbands, rejected and forced out of their villages, and left to live marginalised in isolation and shame.

Around 2 million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula in Asia and Africa, and each year between 50 000 and 100 000 women worldwide develop obstetric fistula. In developing countries, living in rural areas means limited access to healthcare. Poverty and lack of money for obstetric care puts women further at risk. Obstetric fistulas develop when emergency obstetric care is not available to women who develop complications during labor. It is preventable, and treatable. Obstetric fistulas can be prevented if a woman has access to quality obstetric care including a trained midwife, and an emergency cesarean section. If an obstetric fistula has occurred, it can be closed with reconstructive intra vaginal surgery. This operation is life-restoring, the cost of a single surgery around $600.

Holistic rehabilitation includes physiotherapy, and counseling and support, which is essential to help restoring the woman’s dignity and social reintegration. No woman should have to live with this debilitating condition which can be prevented and treated. Prevention is key to ending obstetric fistula. Through increased global public awareness, and providing increased services to obstetric healthcare, there is hope.

To find out more, or how you can offer a life changing gift, visit https://hamlin.org.au/