[New] PILATES – HELPING MIND AND BODY INTO GOOD SHAPE

The awareness of mental and physical wellbeing is perhaps more in focus now than ever before.

In a post-Covid world, Kathy Innes, founder of Sidcup-based Back Your Body, believes Pilates and sports massage can help relieve the stresses and strains many of us endure.

“Covid affected people’s mental and physical health. People suffered from increased anxiety and stress during the pandemic and now with a more sedentary working life (from home) their physical health is a concern.”

Kathy runs Pilates courses both online and in-person and offers sports massage therapy from her studio in the Sidcup area.

She insists the benefits to mind and body are enormous – and often underappreciated

So, how did it all start for Kathy – has she always been in this industry? Far from it. She decided to leave her pressurised recruitment role in the City over 18 years ago now and she doesn’t regret it one bit. She initially trained as aerobics and fitness instructor and things moved on from there.

“So often, clients would speak to me before class expressing how they were limited in what they could do because of a long-standing injury or condition and how frustrating it was to them not to be able to do what they loved doing,” Kathy says.

With this in mind, in 2007 she embarked on what was to be a life-changing course, studying for a diploma in Pilates.

It proved a pivotal moment for Kathy in fully appreciating the huge benefits Pilates offers people of all ages and fitness levels. She derives enormous satisfaction seeing clients get out of pain, recover quickly from injuries and manage chronic conditions such as arthritis.

As another string to her bow, and because she wanted to further develop knowledge on how and why injuries were caused, Kathy studied for and gained a Level 5 BTEC in Sports & Remedial Massage Therapy.

Pandemic Woes

With a broad offering to local clients, Back Your Body was in fine fettle until Covid arrived. Kathy had to adapt and quickly when lockdown happened. She takes up the story: “A year prior to Covid I had moved into new premises at the Business Centre in Chislehurst but when the pandemic hit, I had no choice but to close things down and move out”.

Kathy was quick in setting up Pilates online for her clients and anyone else that wanted to benefit from the exercise regime not to mention the healthy (and safely remote) interaction with others.

“I still provide Pilates classes online but it is good to run these alongside inperson classes now. The split of my work post-Covid has changed – it is about 60% Pilates and 40% Sports massage; before it was the other way round”.

Back Your Body is now running at full speed and as Kathy explains, a Covid Bounce Back loan and a location rethink have reaped dividends.

“I used a Bounce Back Loan to pay for the conversion of my garage into a Pilates studio. It is a lot cheaper than the rent I was paying for premises previously and it works really well for both me and my clients”.

She adds: “It is good to be busy again and I do my best to get the brand recognised locally. I could probably do more on social media but word of mouth recommendations and good online reviews have certainly helped get things back on track!”

Website: www.backyourbody.com, Contact: info@backyourbody.co.uk.