Flexibility isn’t the entry fee. It’s the result. The reformer is actually designed for people who aren’t flexible. The springs assist your movement, which means you can work through ranges of motion your body wouldn’t access on its own yet. The machine meets you where you are.
Your arms can look the same. Your legs can look the same. You can weigh the same. And underneath, your muscles are quietly becoming less dense, more infiltrated with fat. Researchers call it “marbling.” Great if you’re a wagyu steak. Not great if you’re still using your body.
Around 70% of women experience widespread joint pain, stiffness, and fatigue during perimenopause, and most never find out why. In October 2024, researchers finally gave it a name: the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. Mel breaks down what’s actually happening, why pushing harder at the gym can backfire, and what the research says about the kind of movement that helps.
There’s a reason you handle stress better since you started coming here. And it has nothing to do with your core.
There’s a reason you handle stress better since you started coming here. And it has nothing to do with your core.
If you’re new to HPY and you’ve been wondering about the mirrors – now you know. It’s not an oversight, and we’re not getting them installed.
When exercise is part of who you are, the decision is already made. You don’t debate whether to go. You just go. The same way you don’t debate whether to brush your teeth or have your morning coffee.
Early mornings, late nights, a thousand small decisions. I’m usually up before 6am anyway – but somehow that time keeps going to emails and planning instead of getting on a reformer. I’ve been telling myself I’ll get back to it “once things settle down.”
The apparatus Joseph Pilates originally called the “Universal Reformer” was literally a tool of healing. The springs weren’t there to hurt you. They were there to help your body relearn what it had forgotten.
Pardon our stop-and-go posting. When we do show up, it’s because we’ve got something worth saying.
