Pilates Tonic

12/05/2025

Your feet work all day, but most of the muscles in them are asleep.

That matters more than you'd think. When your feet don't function well, your ankles compensate. Then your knees. Then your lower back. It's a chain reaction most people never trace back to the source.

This simple seated exercise wakes up the muscles in your soles and stabilizes your ankles—without any equipment. It looks like nothing, but the feeling is intense once you find those dormant muscles.

Give it a try!

Want more exercises like this that address the overlooked patterns regular Pilates classes miss? The Alignment Studio membership is built around these kinds of discoveries.

https://pxllnk.co/alignmentstudio

08/29/2023

This exercise takes the kneeling hip flexor stretch and brings in the upper body with a reach and a twist.

08/28/2023

In today’s video, I’ll show you how to wake up your multifidus muscles and improve your posture and relieve back pain.

08/28/2023

I’ll show you how to take ribcage thrust out of an exercise called the Swan prep so you can put more upper back benefits into this traditional Pilates move.

08/31/2017

Great article that takes a closer look at some of the assumptions made about knee joints and osteoarthritis!

"One of the things that's really shifted in our world today is that we sit all the time, and kids sit all the time. And that may be affecting how our joints are forming and how our joints are aging....Your joints aren't just like your automobile tires that wear out as you use them..."

Even after a Harvard team took into account differences in age and weight among ancient specimens and knees today, they found that modern humans tend to have more osteoarthritis.

03/03/2017

Finishing up another week in the studio with amazing people!

12/23/2016

Happy Holidays from Will, Sydney, Ari and the rest of the Tonic crew! The studio will be closed thru Monday, December 26. Have a wonderful weekend and we'll see you on Tuesday for our regular class schedule.

10/30/2016

Words of wisdom from the playground...

10/26/2016

Enhancing foot and ankle mobility by walking on a rock path in this morning's Active Alignment mat class!

10/15/2016