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Pilates and Injury Prevention: A Unique Approach to Sports Performance Improvement

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Athletes are always looking for the next best exercise to build strength, increase energy, help them go faster, and further with more endurance often pushing themselves to and sometimes past their limits to outperform the competition.

The quest for performance dominance if left unchecked and without proper guidance and training can lead to injury leaving the goal for greatness unfulfilled.

Pilates Reformers being used
Pilates Reformers

Athletes, like their coaches and owners hate injuries and do all they can to prevent them at all costs. To help with this goal, many coaches and athletes themselves have added Pilates training to their fitness regimen.

Recently, Pilates has become a common component for amateur, elite and professional athletes alike. According to Stott Pilates writer Kerrie Lee Brown, this shift into mainstream athletic training is due to “Pilates evolving to focus on the modern day biomechanics of the athlete’s body with essential scientific research.”

Pilates’ mind/body training techniques has proven effective in helping participants focus as they gain body awareness and proper postural alignment helping them to perform exercises properly and efficiently without placing undue stress on muscles and joints. To help athletes acquire these skills, and train for peak performance, experienced instructors will perform an assessment of the athlete’s current posture to identify postural deviations. Following the assessment a program is designed to address muscular imbalance issues. For example, a baseball pitcher may show signs of muscular imbalances in the shoulder (due to overuse issues). Based on the specifics of the imbalances the instructor will work with the pitcher to stabilize the shoulder while working all four of the shoulder muscles to strengthen weak muscles and stretch tight muscles.  Two exercises that are sometimes used to strengthen the shoulder muscles are called internal and external rotation.  To assist the participant in properly executing the exercise the instructor provides verbal and imagery queues along with tactile instruction to guide the participant safely through the exercise.  When performing external rotation, the instructor may instruct the participant as follows

Inhale to prepare

Exhale: Stabilize the scapula (verbal instruction) “Slide the shoulder blade down –into an imaginary back pocket “(imagery instruction). — Externally Rotate arm (away from the body, like opening a door) (verbal and imagery)

Inhale: Return the arm to the starting position (like closing a door).   

The verbal and imagery queuing allows the participant to hear, visualize and perform the exercise with proper form. Proper work of the muscles helps to insure strength, proper range of motion and flexibility to alleviate any muscular aggravation and reduce the chances of injury.

Whether you’re on the professional sports field or the field of life, Pilates training will help you stay in the game. Adding Pilates to your training regimen will insure proper balance, postural alignment, strength and flexibility for an active, healthy, injury reduced lifestyle.

Your Namafit business page has some great features you might be missing out on

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When you create a business on Namafit.com your recruiting goals immediately improve. Once you create a business profile on the site you can post as many jobs as you need to fill for yoga, fitness and dance instructors, coaches and trainers. We’ve made it as simple as possible to create a clear, specific job post in the shortest amount of time.

And when you post your job, Namafit works some magic behind the scenes. The Namafit professional network spans the United States. Based on the type of job and location you post Namafit finds the best matches for the job and send notifications to each of them alerting the candidates that the job was just posted. Namafit also sends your job post to the Google job search engine as well as several other external job boards in the USA. Once on google and these other job boards candidates find the job, click apply, and are brought back to your Namafit post to apply directly to you.

Free Features for Businesses

Add Authorized Users to help manage your business page

In addition to the built in job and event promotion tools for your business, we have added some great features to help you be more efficient in your recruiting, too.  What I think it our coolest business feature is the ability to invite other employees to be administrators for your business page.  That means your manager, or lead desk staff or operator can help you post jobs and events.  They can send messages to candidates, reply to applications, update your business pages, and help take these duties off your hands.  But don’t worry, you will be kept in the loop, because you, as the page owner will be copied on messages that are sent to and from your business to candidates.

To take advantage of this amazing business feature, just go to https://namafit.com/business/admin and invite your first authorized user.

business settings for Namafit account
You can add other authorized users to help manage your Namafit business page and postings.

Add Multiple Locations for Your Business

Do you have more than one location? Or do you hold classes and events at more than one location?  You can add all of your locations to your main business page by going to https://namafit.com/business/edit

While there make sure to add and/or update your logo, “About Us”, website address, social media links and phone number for your business to get more SEO exposure for your business and postings.

Business location listings for a Namafit fitness business profile

Use Your Namafit Website Address As A Link From Your Website

Your business page has a permanent URL website address, so you can add that as a link from your business website to lead candidates to your job postings.  Your Namafit business page is a landing page to showcase your business postings for jobs and events.  To add a link to your website: Go to https://namafit.com/business and copy the URL from the address bar of your browser.  Now add that link to your business website with text that says something like “Now Hiring” or “View our current job openings”.

You may want to ask your web developer for help adding this link.  It’s a great way to get more candidate applications for your jobs!

permanent URL for a Namafit business account
Your business URL contains your business name for better SEO exposure

Re-post Jobs and Events in Minutes After They Expire

Jobs and events run for one month when posted.  When they expire you will receive an email notifying you. 

  1. Just click the link in the email to re-post them. 
  2. You can also go to https://namafit.com/postings for jobs and https://namafit.com/events for events. 
  3. Click the “Open Jobs”/”Open Events” drop down selector and switch to “Closed Jobs”/”Closed Events” to see your expired postings. 
  4. On the left, click on the expired posting and click “Re-post” button on the right. 
  5. Make any date and description updates you desire, and publish the posting again!

My events page on Namafit.com

Healing through stillness

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Have you ever stepped into the darkness, the space you’re afraid to enter? The cosmic unknown? It calls to you the breathe of your spirit, gently whispering for you to step inside. Waiting for your arrival with an open embrace.  I have, and in this space is where my true healing began.

burning candle for meditation
Burning a candle during meditation can be calming.

For me I thought meditation was never going to happen. Easy , soft, gentle, uncomplicated. I wanted to just close my eyes, focus on the dance of my breathe, and float away into bliss. I was struggling, my mind always racing, my breathe short, and shallow, always fidgeting, never able to fully embrace the space. Then it happened, The breakdown. The physical and mental kind of breaking that shuts you down, and you feel as though you can no longer go on this way.  I had so much going on in my body and mind. I was having multiple surgeries, health issues, nursing my mom who didn’t have much time left, as she was battling stage five lung cancer, going to school, and working as a preschool teacher. I also suffer from mild depression, ptsd, and fibromyalgia.  My soul said enough! You need to make some changes, I listened.

This is when I found the silence, the stillness I had been turning away from. I was finally ready to listen to spirit, and free myself from my own self destruction. I was ready to begin the journey to freedom. Freedom from the confines of my own negative thoughts and patterns. I knew deep down I needed to greet, and embrace meditation without any expectations,  to just ebb and flow with the river of my mind and see where spirit guides me.

Meditation and I became best friends, we are now inseparable. No, it was not easy, I had to make it accessible and simple for me. I made it a ritual. I wake every morning with the birds signaling me to rise and embody the day full of joy, curiosity, and compassion. I light my candles, the soft glow warming the space.I brew my tea or coffee, sit in the lovely space I created as my altar welcomes me with objects that move me towards my highest self, and bring me love. These are pictures, poems, crystals, candles, my journals, fresh herbs or flowers from my garden. I burn some sage, get comfortable in my seat, close my eyes, and I begin to focus on my breath. Slow, gentle, deep, and expansive, I begin to explore and bear witness to my body and mind. My heartbeat slows with each inhale, and my body becomes soft with each exhale. I am at peace. I made it

I can’t say this was an easy habit to embrace. Patience and I were strangers, we needed to welcome and hold each other on this journey together. Allowing myself that 10 minutes, some days twenty minutes without  the pressure of doing, just being in the present. Yes, thoughts would float their way in, I would acknowledge them , greet them with grace and acceptance, then watch them float away in contentment.  I would allow my body to feel any sensation that would arise, and not fight it. I would embrace , receive, and let go. In time this meditation, {sometimes silent, sometimes guided} not only connected me with source, but with my most authentic self. In these moments of stillness and quite magic happens for me, I feel alive, I feel love, I feel spirit. I see clearly, and with clarity. I know that I am home, and the door to peace is always open.

Ask yourself, How often do I tend to my own garden, get in the dirt, dig in the soil of my beautiful life, muddle around, soak in the sunshine, water my soul, and watch my journey bloom? When we take the time to sit in stillness, and bear witness  to our souls calling, to walk into the space of unknown, and open our hearts, we can heal. We can love and feel gratitude for the gift of life. In turn, we can radiate this love, and peace to all beings everywhere.

If you are in need of resources to help guide you in your meditation practice, I highly recommend the Namafit website. They are great resource for finding experienced meditation and yoga teachers. I also love guided meditations by Tara Brach, and an awesome read that really helped my meditation practice is “Bliss More”, by “Light Watkins.”

Photo credit George Becker

How To Use Your Namafit Profile Page As Your Professional Webpage URL

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Did you know that when you create your profile on Namafit that you get a professional URL so you can share your page?

That’s right.  You can customize your profile to highlight your skills, expertise and interests, so you will stand out to prospective employers and partners.

To get your Professional URL address just go to your profile page, https://namafit.com/profile and highlight the website address at the top of your browser window. Then click “copy” (command + c in Mac, windows + c in Windows).  You now have a shareable profile URL copied to your clipboard.  Go share it!!!!

Of course, sharing is even better when your profile is complete!

Update your profile

  • Go to https://namafit.com/profile/edit to complete your profile details.
  • Add your profile photo.
  • Update your “About Me” section.
  • Confirm your location city and state.
  • Update your social links.
  • Update your certifications.
  • Add your resume.
  • Update the styles and levels that you teach and practice.

Update your personal preference settings

  • Go to https://namafit.com/settings and select the settings you prefer.
  • You can:
  • Change the distance for job notifications you receive
  • Select who you would like to be able to see your professional profile
  • General Public
  • Only logged in Namafit members
  • Only those businesses you apply
  • Update your password
  • Update your email address
Namafit profile preferences
That’s it- we’ve worked hard to make it easy to make you profile page and keep it up to date. Please email or message us if you have any questions.

The Journey Begins. How Namafit Got Started.

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How I Solved My Own Staffing Problems At My New Fitness Studio

handstand

When I opened a yoga, fitness and dance studio in 2010 I was embarking on a journey very new to my family and me. Prior to opening our new studio, I had been a software engineer for over 16 years, a husband and a father of 3 boys. As you can imagine, my wife and I were very busy — on top of being an awesome mother to our boys, she owns and operates a busy local restaurant.

I always knew that I wanted to open a small business close to our home — something that would help contribute to the overall wellbeing of our community. After living in our area for several years, we realized that there was a need for an awesome local dance/fitness studio. We had lamented the fact that there was nowhere in Menlo Park to take good fitness and yoga classes. We also noticed that the dance studios where our boys were taking classes were packed with kids. We have both been active and into athletics our whole lives, and as parents, that segment of our lives had definitely been neglected for years! So, looking back, I guess opening a yoga, fitness and dance studio was a pretty natural thing to do.

Getting the business systems setup, finding a space to rent and getting ready to open was time consuming but all fairly straightforward. I called a contractor to help with the interior build out. They took care of the details. I opened bank accounts. I signed up for MindbodyOnline to handle reservations and payments. Making a schedule of classes was actually pretty difficult because it meant taking into account the demographics in the neighborhood and neighboring cities, figuring out what types of classes were appropriate at which time of day. The initial goal was to offer youth classes, mostly dance, in the afternoons, so factoring in the times that schools let out was important. But in the end, it was all set in place. This was all in motion leading up to an opening date.

Staffing for a new fitness, yoga and dance business

Staffing (hiring professionals who were going to instruct my classes, not to mention represent my business to the public) was something of an unknown. After doing some research online, Craigslist quickly became my go-to resource for posting job ads to find teachers. Being a new business, I had a budget for marketing and advertising, which helped cover the cost of the $75 each job post cost with Craigslist. Everyone knows Craigslist — you write up a job title and description, pay $75 and submit. The job loads into the “fitness/spa/salon” category search results and you wait. At some point for most Craigslist posts, just like anyone else who posts on Craigslist, I received emails from people interested in my open positions. Sometimes I would get an email with a nice paragraph about the person, along with their name, email, phone number and resume attached. Sometimes, I would receive a quick request to be hired, with a name and nothing else. The rest of the responses I saw fell somewhere in between those two extremes.

When I did receive enough information about a person applying, my next step was to google their name and hopefully find out more about their background, where else they teach, how long they’ve been teaching, etc. After several email and phone call chains, followed by onsite interviews, ultimately, I was able to hire enough professionals to fill my staff sufficiently to run thebusiness.

Connections

A big part of running a business that relies on independent contractors for its staff is the maintaining and building of professional connections. I found out very quickly that my day-to-day staffing needs relied heavily on my ability to search my rolodex in an efficient manner for not only “great instructors”, but “great instructors” that could teach the types of yoga/fitness that we were filling classes for. (I don’t actually have a rolodex, as I’m sure you may have surmised, but instead have several email lists that I am constantly curating.)

Basically, this is how my current “networking” efforts have gone:

  1. Post to Craigslist
  1. Email/phone back and forth
  1. Invite potential instructor for an onsite chat
  1. HIRE them for a class
  1. After hearing feedback from those who participated in the class, add the instructor to my list.
  2. Repeat steps 1–5 next time an instructor bails on a class (which happens more often than you’d think)

After going through this process more times than I can count, I started to think that there had to be a better way. After doing a bunch of research, and interviewing a bunch of my instructors and many similar businesses, I came to realize that there wasn’t anything available that suited my needs. As it turns out, the fitness/yoga industry is very word-of-mouth driven when it comes to staffing. Most other studios and gyms follow the same pattern of Craigslist and email lists to fulfill their staffing needs.

Enter Namafit

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been a Software Engineer for years, for startups all over the Silicon Valley. After experiencing the above issues for months in my own business, I decided that enough was enough! I hooked back up with a buddy of mine that I’d worked with for years on other projects and we built namafit.com.

Namafit is a platform that completely solves my fitness instructor staffing problems. I’m able to quickly post opportunities, which are then automatically broadcast to all of Namafit’s extensive database of instructors. Instructors have the ability to create their own profile, which includes information such as their qualifications, styles/levels they teach, and even their resumé. We have been hard at work building a product that will replace the dreaded email list, and will give businesses such as myself a tool to find quality instructors quickly. And it’s a tool to for fitness instructors and trainers to find more work, and more importantly, have more work find them.