Maggie Downie, Author at Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

About Maggie Downie

Thank you for giving your time to stop and read my blog. I hope it encourages you to keep moving. Move and the body will be happier. And when you're moving you can hike, run, swim in Jell-O, race over non-Newtonian fluids, travel the world or build igloos--if that's your thing. If not, you can watch me do it. This is just a spot to try and feel good about life.

Pilates: Beginner vs. Intermediate

Maggie doing Spread Eagle on the Cadillac with Fuzzy Straps…Intermediate

Most of Personal Euphoria’s group classes are mixed level, but a couple of our towns offer intermediate classes. People regularly ask me what the differences between beginner and intermediate classes are. So here are some basic guidelines I like to follow:

Pilates Basic Principles

You know and are familiar with all the basic principles. It doesn’t mean you absolutely have to have perfected each principle, but you know it when you hear it and while you may require a reminder, you can make the adjustment needed if cued to. The general basic principles are: breathing, imprint vs. neutral, shoulder stability, neck placement during exercises, and knitting the ribs. Again, this doesn’t mean that you never need to be reminded to relax your shoulders, but when you hear that reminder you are able to. It doesn’t mean that you never feel an exercise in your neck, but when you do, you have ways to move your body to release that tension or you know to lower the head.

Control Imprint vs Neutral

This is […]

Pilates: Beginner vs. IntermediateMaggie Downie2018-02-14T15:28:07-05:00

A Lump Behind Knee

What’s that lump behind my knee? If you’ve ever felt a lump where that soft tissue at the back of your knee normally is, chances are you have a popliteal cyst (aka baker’s cyst). You probably want to talk to your doctor in case it is something else and also about the best way to treat it (drainage, physical therapy, or wait and hope it goes away on its own which can happen).

Some people will experience pain, others don’t. Range of motion can also be limited. Either way it is usually caused by fluid bulging out behind the knee and is associated with arthritis. According to the American Journal of Sports Medicine baker’s cysts are highly linked to meniscus tears—full tears or partial. Something is going wrong in the knee which then produces too much fluid. I’d recommend you should be doing some physical therapy because something is causing the baker’s cyst, pain or no pain.

I was hoping there was an interesting factoid about how prevalent baker’s cyst are among bakers. Maybe because they are on their feet all day in warm kitchens so their bodies produce more fluid, but it’s simply named after Dr. William Baker who first described […]

A Lump Behind KneeMaggie Downie2018-01-13T16:04:14-05:00

Client Corner: Movement Helps Parkinson’s

Janice teaching barre in Glastonbury.

“Do what your body can do today,” Janice Flanigan calls out as my leg lifts for what feels like the millionth time and every muscle holding me up starts to burn. I’m at a Total Barre class in Glastonbury which Janice loves to teach because of its focus on the core, hips and legs. By the time 45 minutes have gone by I’ve gotten a full body workout, and I happily relax into our cool down.

Janice has been teaching many different types of classes for over 20 years. You can find her teaching Total Barre, Pilates Plus Strength, Interval Training Cardio, Low Impact Cardio-Strength and Kickboxing this fall with Personal Euphoria. Each class offers a different challenge for her clients. Janice says:

I love Pilates because of its precision. I love Yogalates because we get the best of both worlds with the spirituality and strengthening and stretching of Yoga and the critical core strength of Pilates.

A class that is particularly special is her weekly boxing class held at the Enfield Senior Center. The class is a combination of boxing and functional interval training, […]

Client Corner: Movement Helps Parkinson’sMaggie Downie2017-12-29T20:45:56-05:00

Perspective

I was flying home and we hit mild turbulence. Mild turbulence. It may not scare most people, but it terrified me because even the slightest thing that seems unusual on a plane makes me grab the arm rests as if they can protect me from disaster. So there I was death gripping the shoulder rest, breathing steadily and a little girl, I’m guessing around six, on the other side of the aisle looked out the window and exclaimed excitedly, “Look, we’re going through a cloud!” She was thrilled. And I thought, clearly this is all about perspective. I could be excited that we are going through a cloud right now or I could be scared. That thought process has helped keep me calm on a couple of plane rides now. Perspective seems to be the lesson of the year, at least for me.

The isn’t the first time a child has motivated me to make a change. Years ago I resisted getting an Iphone because it seemed too complicated. Then I saw a two-year-old using one with ease and I figured if she could I could. I was right, although I’m not sure my life is better for it. […]

PerspectiveMaggie Downie2018-01-13T16:05:44-05:00

Plank Story: TSA Rules No Joking

I like my little brother even though he almost got me arrested.

I was flying home from Dallas after visiting my brother who had been in Israel. He’s brought home some bath salts from the Dead Sea and given me some to bring back to Connecticut. I don’t check a bag and as I came through security at TSA, my suitcase was pulled off the conveyor belt for inspection.

The TSA worker rifled through my bag while I watched. There were two of them. Both friendly. Making small talk. When one found the bath salts the two agreed that was what the machine had red flagged. He asked what they were and I told him that they had made the trip from Israel. He said they would need to test them. I asked what he thought they were. Apparently, you can use flakes that look similar or have a similar density to make a bomb. Not knowing me at all, the TSA worker was unaware that I’m terrified of everything that has even the most remote chance of causing […]

Plank Story: TSA Rules No JokingMaggie Downie2017-12-29T20:49:07-05:00

Previous 444546 Next