The Stirland Approach

The Stirland Approach 🤸🏽‍♀️ Pain relief • Joint health • Performance

Founder of The Stirland Approach™

📖 Free 15-min consultation ↓

https://www.thestirlandapproach.com

Back in 2015 I started to rethink movement. And this was the beginning of

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Until this point I had been a Pilates Teacher for 16 years but I made a move to work towards something that was more fluid and natural, and less positioned and tense. I wanted my clients to learn freedom in movement, that, consciously engaging muscles didn’t give. I started to realise that I didn’t n

eed to teach my clients to engage their core muscles for their abdominal muscles to work. I concentrate on teaching good movement patterns, that follow the path of least muscular resistance. My clients learn how to use gravity rather than to apply unnecessary effort. The Stirland Approach is about teaching the body to become reactive to the load it creates as it moves. We learn that too much tightness becomes the inhibitor. And movements that are inhibited create stiff bodies. Release your (movement) inhibitions

You can learn my Approach through private sessions, classes and workshops. Sessions are available at the studio or on zoom

This week I’ve had a client who made me sit and cry after their session (happy tears though 🥲) Without saying too much, ...
17/06/2026

This week I’ve had a client who made me sit and cry after their session (happy tears though 🥲)

Without saying too much, they originally came to me with significant pain and movement issues. Today, they achieved something with their mobility that could be life changing for them

This hasn’t happened overnight. It’s been months of patience and consistency, small wins, setbacks, and my client putting their trust in me and the process.

Never lose hope and never ever give up on your body.

The body has an incredible ability to adapt, recover and find new possibilities when we give it the right environment, the right input and enough time.

Sometimes the biggest successes aren’t measured in strength, flexibility or fitness.

It can also be measured in quality of life 🫶🏽🤍✨

I really do have the best job in the world 🌍

I’m so excited to be bringing The Stirland Approach to Newcastle this weekend as part of Manifest 2026.I’ll be leading a...
11/06/2026

I’m so excited to be bringing The Stirland Approach to Newcastle this weekend as part of Manifest 2026.

I’ll be leading a Functional Movement workshop on Sunday, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend dedicated to health, wellbeing and self-discovery.

My work is a little different from what many people expect. Rather than focusing on muscles alone, we’ll explore how the body is designed to move through the skeletal chain. We’ll look at the relationship between the joints, how movement travels through the body, and why creating more movement options often has a bigger impact than simply trying to get stronger or stretch harder.

Expect flowing, natural movement. Expect to slow down, pay attention and learn how your body communicates with you. We’ll explore movement awareness, decompression, efficiency and how reducing unnecessary tension can help the body move with more ease.

If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your body, frustrated by stiffness, tension or recurring aches and pains, this workshop will help you see movement differently. My goal isn’t to teach you exercises. It’s to help you understand your body better, move with more freedom and leave feeling lighter, calmer and more connected to yourself.

There are only a couple of tickets left for the weekend, so if you’ve been thinking about coming, now’s the time.

Newcastle, I can’t wait to meet you and share this work with you.

See you at .fest.newc 2026. 🖤🩷💜🩵

Is your child an athlete? 👇🏽Recently I've had the pleasure of working with a number of young athletes, and this is one o...
06/06/2026

Is your child an athlete? 👇🏽

Recently I've had the pleasure of working with a number of young athletes, and this is one of them.

This is Jude, a goalkeeper at a local football academy.

Jude has been brilliant to work with. He's engaged fully in the process, taken on board everything we've covered, and put the work in, inbetween sessions.

Jude came to see me because he wanted to improve his movement quality. Like many young athletes, he spends a lot of time training, loading and repeating the same movements over and over again, which is necessary when you play sport.

His goals included:
• Improving movement quality
• Reducing restrictions through the body
• Improving recovery between training sessions
• Helping the body cope better with training demands
• Learning how to move more efficiently

Our work has focused on improving the relationship between the femur, pelvis and spine so that his body can move with less restriction and more efficiency.

Here he's learning how to:
• Decompress the body
• Improve movement awareness
• Better understand his own feedback
• Create more movement options
• Move with less unnecessary tension

Most athletes think the way to get better is to load more, work harder, be faster and become stronger. Whilst those things are important, sometimes it's also about removing the tension, restrictions and habits that are affecting movement quality.

Has it been noticed in his off-season training?
I'll let Jude and his dad answer that one 😉😮‍💨

🏃⚽️🏌️‍♀️🚴‍♂️🧗‍♀️🏊🏻‍♀️🏑⛹️‍♀️🏇🏓🎾🏏🏉🥊💃
If you're an athlete who is struggling with stiffness, recurring injuries or feeling restricted in the way your body moves, I'd love to help.

Leave me a message here

https://www.thestirlandapproach.com/contact

03/06/2026

Not everything is about making muscles work harder.

Sometimes all we need to do is move.

As we move, muscles naturally join in when they’re needed.

The problem is we’ve become obsessed with consciously tightening muscles because we’ve been told that’s how they work best.

But a muscle that’s constantly being told what to do loses its ability to react AND works harder just for the sake of working harder

The body is designed to respond, adapt and react

I think we’ve spent so much time trying to control movement that we’ve forgotten how to experience it.

Movement is a feeling

For the last 2 days I’ve been in the classroom, learning about my business and my beliefs around it I’ve come away wanti...
29/05/2026

For the last 2 days I’ve been in the classroom, learning about my business and my beliefs around it

I’ve come away wanting to explore even more and I’ll definitely be booking in for 1:1s with Alan

Currently working on and understanding my Ikigai 😉

Thank you for enlightening me 💡
Change Working Alan Johnson- That NLP Bloke

This week I’m working individually with 8 young athletes from a range of different sportsAnd I love seeing more parents ...
17/05/2026

This week I’m working individually with 8 young athletes from a range of different sports

And I love seeing more parents and coaches recognising the importance of helping young bodies cope better with the demands of training and sport.

Because coping better is not about adding more load.
Most young athletes are already doing this.

It’s about decompressing the muscular system.
Improving awareness and control.
Helping the nervous system re-regulate.
Improving a young athlete’s ability to understand feedback from their own body.

We spend a huge amount of time teaching kids how to push harder, train more and perform.

But we spend very little time teaching them how to recover well.

And I believe that matters.

The athletes who learn how to recover, regulate and move efficiently alongside their training are the ones far more likely to support longevity in sport and cope better with the demands placed on their bodies.

This side of youth athletic development is often overlooked.

But thankfully, more people are beginning to see its value.

If this interests you for your child please contact me for more info

https://www.thestirlandapproach.com/contact

Stop judging a movement by how pretty it looks! Looks can be deceiving, we all know that 🤭 and your joints mechanics are...
16/05/2026

Stop judging a movement by how pretty it looks!

Looks can be deceiving, we all know that 🤭 and your joints mechanics are far more important than how a movement looks and by forcing your body to move through unnecessary tension

To many people, the tighter, straighter, more controlled version would probably even look “better.”

But movement should never be judged purely on appearance.

Because similar movement does not mean similar mechanics.

When the body becomes too fixed, too controlled, or too tension-led, joints lose their ability to react naturally through the chain.

The result?

Movement becomes more localised.
Load becomes less distributed.
And certain muscles end up doing far more work than they should.

In the second version, the movement is less held and more reactive.

The femurs are allowed to respond.
The pelvis can move more freely.
The spine doesn’t have to create the whole movement by itself from a point of tension

This is not about making movement look prettier.

It’s about improving how the body manages load through the system.

Watch the legs.
Watch the pelvis.
Watch where the movement starts.

Similar movement.
Completely different mechanics.

Do you think a 100yr old person has ever sat on television and said:"The secret to my longevity was spending years being...
13/05/2026

Do you think a 100yr old person has ever sat on television and said:

"The secret to my longevity was spending years being angry at strangers, arguing online about politics, consuming loads of rubbish that I have no control over and living in a constant state of stress."

Of course they haven’t 🙄

Because bitterness is not ever going to be the secret to longevity

Stress changes the body.
Anger changes the body.
Living in constant flight/fight/ freeze mode changes the body.

And yet some people still fail to make the connection between chronic stress, nervous system overload, inflammation and pain.

And even if you think its not affecting you, you are just burying your head and ignoring the obvious

Keep your peace, enjoy your life, and give yourself the best chance of a long, healthy happy one

Have a great Wednesday everyone 🫶🏽🤍

11/05/2026

These are (some of) my frustrations with the movement industry

We have more access to information than ever before, yet people are doing the same exercises they did in 1992, moving poorly, accepting sloppy teaching in favour of aesthetically pleasing studios, and living with stiffness and discomfort when they shouldn’t be.

Movement has become overly controlled, over-cued and overcomplicated.

People are being taught to brace constantly, hold tension unnecessarily, and force their bodies into positions that “look” good instead of understanding how the movement chain actually works.

Movement cannot be understood properly from teacher who’s done a weekend qualification.
The body is far too complex for that.

Good movement isn’t about how tight, tidy or aesthetically pleasing something looks.

It’s about whether the joints can actually move well.
How supportive the pelvis is at the centre of the body (the skeletal core)
Whether the spine can respond.
Whether the ribcage can move.
Whether the nervous system feels safe enough to allow movement to happen efficiently.

***Pretty movement is rarely efficient***

And permanent tension is not the same thing as stability.

The body should feel adaptable, responsive and free. Not held together by tension it doesn’t need.

Address

Bow Street Centre
Guisborough
TS146PR

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 9pm
Tuesday 7am - 8pm
Wednesday 7am - 9pm
Thursday 7am - 9pm
Friday 7am - 7:30pm
Saturday 8:30am - 1pm

Telephone

+447866482300

Website

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