I know, it seems like a contradiction. Aren’t I doing Pilates to make my life easier? Yes, and no. I’m doing it to make my life easier someday. I’m doing it to make myself stronger now and in the future. And as part of this what I’ve really found is that through Pilates I’m activating muscles that haven’t worked in years. Some of them are muscles that were disconnected during the surgery, but not all. Some are muscles that just stopped working, or worked less, years before the surgery, when I was compensating for pain and discomfort.

Now those muscles are awake again. And, they have to work. Well, I suppose they don’t have to work, but my body wants them to. Anyone who has recovered from a surgery will know this feeling; anyone who has started a new exercise or weight lifting routine will know something similar. You get the burn, that’s undeniable burn. But, with this it’s a little more than that. For me, going for a skate or hiking up a hill and actually using the muscles that haven’t been working, or working correctly, in years goes beyond burn. I get fatigue. I feel like I’m doing twice the work I’m actually doing. But, I also know that the muscle is rebuilding, and that next time I’ll be less fatigued, feel less burn. Keep up this combo of Pilates and life and I actually might be back in my pre-surgery form before too long.

On another note: those exercises on the Cadillac, where I circle my leg in the air, they are actually becoming a bit easier. I have more turn out in the hip, and less fatigue. Nice when things come together this way.

The Cadillac is interesting for me for the possibilities and limitations it offers. One of the most frustrating, yet compelling, exercises is seemingly simple and begins with my lying on my back (core engaged, of course) with one leg straight in front of me, the other one straight up in the air. Fundamentally, I’m drawing circles in the air, first circling the leg out and around, then reversing directions so my leg passes above the opposite knee first and crosses the body. For the left side this is moderately easy—well, as easy as an exercise should be, I suppose. Then, we switch legs and it’s time for the right side to do the work.

I actually hear myself grunt. Out loud. And not quietly. My goal on this leg is not just to do the exercise, but to be aware of keeping my hip open, of rolling the muscles across my quad and thigh to the outside. It is nearly impossible. And so my leg trembles—no, it shakes—above me as I lie on my back and, yes, grunt, loudly.

Still, as difficult as this may be it tells me something and shows me just how my body has adjusted and compensated, how it has made up new rules for how to perform. Now, it seems, with a little help from Atlas it’s my turn to break those habits. The body was designed to perform efficiently and my body’s revised plan on how it should perform isn’t efficient. It isn’t helpful. Exercises such as this are incredibly difficult, but it seems like I can actually feel the scar tissue giving up a little deep in that hip, and the muscles engaging again.

From there we move onto a familiar exercise, the “footwork,” which has me pulling in my stomach and pushing my feet against the reformer bar in order to move the bed against the tension of the springs. Danae really pushes me to engage the thigh and concentrate on opening the hip, and rolling the quad muscles out. The problem is, it’s much more difficult on the right side and it feels, well, different. And that’s when it hits me: it’s scar tissue in the hip joint and underneath the muscles that is getting in the way. Until now, I didn’t know what was preventing my muscles from functioning as I thought they should, or why I have that almost dirty, gritty feeling. Almost as if my gluteus muscles have to push through or past something to get to the full extension, but never can.

Being able to verbalize this to Danae makes all the difference in the world. When I do so, another light clicks on for her, too, and she begins making adjustments to my positions and to the exercises I’m doing to both help strengthen the muscles and, through use, break down that internal scar tissue. In fact, we end the day with her stretching my hip. She takes control of my leg and moves the femur head through the hip socket. For anyone who has ever had a bad neck and had the joy of light traction, this is what it’s like, only in the hip joint. As she moves my leg around, I can feel more room opening up in there. Then, she takes the time to stretch me and for the first time in as long as I can remember—since well before the surgery even—I actually feel a stretch in the very back of my hip joint, where leg meets buttocks. Heaven, I tell you. Heaven and a stretch I am not able to get on this side on my own.

Not bad for a few weeks of work. Pretty impressive, really.

What’s even more amazing is how Danae has figured out how to trigger my weak points. On Thursday she noticed that I sort of hunch the top of my right hip up toward my rib cage. The muscles in my lower back and side there aren’t as strong. Meanwhile, the left side is completely over compensating. Which led me to mention how suddenly I fatigue much more on the right side while rollerblading. I think that made Danae happy.

“That’s because those muscles are finally firing,” she said. And she right. I skate for less than 30 minutes and my hip flexors and lower back on the right side are straining. Just a few weeks ago I could have skated for an hour and not felt worn out. Now that those muscles—especially the iliopsoas and the tensor fascia latae, I believe—are activated and working again it is as if they haven’t been used in ages, despite the fact I’ve been working out and exercising regularly.

When Danae realizes all this she really puts me through the paces, including moving me to mat exercises. Truth is, even though it has been nearly two years since my periacetabuler osteotomy, I still often have to lift my thigh up with my hands to, say, get in the car after sitting in the passenger seat.

I at once like and loathe the mat. I like it because it’s something new. And it definitely feels like a challenge. I loathe (loathe, loathe!) it because when I’m on the floor like this Danae has me doing exercises as simple (it seems) as leg rotations. Holding one leg in the air I draw circles. Sounds easy, but the truth is I actually grunt during this. I mean, I grunt like a tennis player on a serve, only louder and for longer.

Still, I can tell I’m getting stronger. My stomach is actually flatter and more toned, and other significant people in my life say they can see the difference in my legs and hips too.
Question is, am I taller yet? And can I do that handstand?

Danae tells me, in one of our sessions, that I’m body aware and that’s good. It makes it possible, I believe, for me then to connect what she’s telling me with what’s going on. How certain muscles are engaging, or not engaging. Of course the downside is that I get so focused on trying to engage one muscle that I forget to keep those stomach muscles pulled up and in. They are pretty much always supposed to be up and in during Pilates. Lead with the core. Draw the stomach muscles up and in as you push out against the equipment with the feet. Lead with the stomach, let it do the work.

These are things I sometimes lose track of in the middle of an exercise. Danae has been adjusting my positions to really target the muscles that seem to have simply stopped working sometime before or after the surgery (other muscles have been compensating for them). And, as I feel those muscles—in my hip, in the outside of my thigh, in the back of my thigh—begin working again I often forget about the stomach muscles all together, I’m so focused on that one muscle I haven’t felt in two years.

Take, for example, the exercise Danae has me doing on the reformer. The reformer is probably the most used piece of equipment in the studio. It has a series of springs, used for resistance, and features a gliding platform that the student can lay, stand, sit or kneel on. By pressing against a bar at the end of the reformer I move the gliding platform along a set of rails. As the bed moves, the controlled tension in the springs works the muscles.

And this is where I have my first “ah ha” moment in Pilates. Danae makes a minor tweak to my stance, adjusting my foot so that weight and pressure is distributed evenly across the front of my foot. Suddenly, I’m not just pushing through the ball of my foot underneath my big- and second-toe, but through the whole ball of the foot clear out to the little toe.

It’s one minor adjustment to my position, but the results are instantaneous. Immediately my leg becomes weaker and I feel those muscles responsible for the external rotation of my hip actually kick in and, well, try to work. I push out against the tension of the springs and they tremble then engage. I slowly bend my knees and come back in, trying to maintain control of the springs as I do, and my right leg wobbles like jello. Well, at least we’ve found my weak points. I get a little stronger every time.

This is not that kind of gym workout muscle strength—you know, where you feel like you could suddenly out-bench your high school gym teacher along with her 40 pound glasses and shoes? No, this is all in the core. It’s as if my stomach muscles—from the top of my hip bones to the bottom of my sternum—have finally decided to stand up and take notice. They’re pulling in, engaging. It’s a bit like flexing a muscle and keeping it flexed, with just a little conscious effort and yet without fatigue.

I’ve done a little Pilates in the past: I took a mat class through the UW Women’s Center several years back. This, though, is different. At Atlas my instructor, Danae, is introducing me to machine work. The resistance is all spring driven and I’m constantly being reminded to pull my stomach muscles up and in, or told to drive a stomach muscle down deep, as if I’m trying to connect it to the bench below me. This, I know, will serve to make my stomach stronger and therein protect my back.

My first day at Atlas was somewhat introductory. Danae and I learned about each other and she evaluated my capabilities. I had a good workout even on the first day, but on the second she really began shaping the exercises for me. Every Pilates practice, Danae tells me, is based around a stable of exercises, but from that base the instructor customizes the exercises for the individual client. For me, there are poses that force me to really work hip and gluteus muscles that seem to have given up on me a while ago. This, Danae explains, is likely why the right leg adductors—that long muscle that runs roughly from the groin area to the inside of the knee—are always so sore. Those adductors are constantly doing the work other muscles are slacking on. We want to change that. And so, Danae is building a repertoire exclusively for me.

And already my stomach feels empowered. I walk around like this for most of the day: Conscious of keeping my stomach muscles engaged; aware of the power I seem to hold in my core. I squat to pick up the paper; I activate my obliques when I reach for the dish soap. Of course, by the end of the day I’m lazy and slip back into my old habits and bend over for my shoes; let my stomach sag into its familiar shape. Lazy me, perhaps. I plan to be get better with time. Still, at less than a week in I already feeling stronger. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

I’m on a mission this summer to get stronger. I’m ISO a powerful core. I’m on the hunt for a strong lower back. I’m in search of the power it takes to be able to do a handstand with ease again.

And to find these things, I’m headed off for my first Pilates session at Atlas Pilates, in Seattle’s Queen Anne. My primary goal: Strength. My secondary goal: Flexibility. My penultimate goal: A body more like the sculpted physique of my more athletic days, and less like the post-grad school writer form I’ve taken on recently. My final goal: To shed a few pounds along the way. This, though, would be a happy happenstance. I’ll leave skinny to other means.

In addition to measuring my improved strength in handstands, I hope to see the change on the volleyball court at Alki this summer, and on the slopes at Crystal this winter. I want those short, quick movements that used to having me diving across the sand for a volleyball. I want to be able to respond swiftly in the bumps, really drive my snowboard through Cascade cement and have fluid stability when my snowboard is buried in light powder this winter. And, when I learn to kiteboard this summer, I want it to be easier.

Is that to say I want it all? Perhaps. Still, I’m hoping some time spent in the studio at Atlas will help me get it all, or at least get a good deal of it.

I blame my weak core in part on lack of discipline on my part and in part on a serious surgery two years back. In 2007, at the age of 36, I had my hip completely rebuilt—a periacetabular osteotomy. Between the surgery itself (lots of cutting of bone, detaching and reattaching muscles, etc.) and the long, long recovery time on crutches, I’ve lost a fair amount of the strength I had.

To get at least some of this strength back, and to make sure I have a body that supports my lifestyle, I made a deal with Atlas Studios: I’m trading some writing work for some Pilates work.

I figure Pilates will be a good fit for me for a variety of reasons. First, it’s said to strengthen and elongate muscles (Teresa, at Atlas, actually says people sometimes get taller through Pilates practice) and therein improve muscle elasticity and joint mobility. Good things for a girl with hyper extensive, and sometime cantankerous, joints. Second, Pilates works those deep abdominal muscles, improving back stability and bumping up core strength. Added benefit? It also tends to result in tight, toned thighs and tummy. And, the exercises workout the whole body, resulting in strength in the feet even, and improved balance.

So, those are my reasons for doing Pilates, and my goals. I’ll keep this page updated weekly with a review of what my sessions have been like (I promise not to complain about getting my tuckus handed to me too often) and results.

Handstands, here I come. Look out cartwheels, you might be next.