Nub News gets UP CLOSE with Jeanette Mayes the owner and instructor at her studio Gee's Pilates in Hadleigh. who talks about her business and what benefits pilates can bring as a stretch exercise for your health.

Jeanette, known widely as Gee, started her journey 22 years ago, with a background in nursing where she trained at Ipswich hospital. It was as she was finishing her training in London and over time developed a common nurses' lower back problem.

Gee said: "My journey into Pilates started with the fact that I had low back pain and bad hip pain. The hip pain was from driving in London, which I developed a complaint that is quite common with London cab drivers. I started to see a chiropractor who was always telling me that I've got to try pilates. At the time almost 22 years ago, there were not many pilate studios around because it was a relatively new form of exercise.

"However I managed to find a studio in Primrose Hill and started attending regular classes whilst using their equipment. From there I went on to do mat and only stayed in nursing until 2017 and then kind of thought I really want to train to be a pilates instructor."

She continued: "Because I overcame my back pain and hip pain. I started to tell other people "Oh you've got to do pilates" and particularly I worked in general practice and I would see lots of patients coming through with low back pain which is one of the biggest problems people have today, it is a real endemic problem.

"I looked into it and trained in 2014 and the training itself was quite involved. I trained with an organisation called the pilates foundation, it took 18 months and it involved regularly attending weekend workshops and observing classes. In the meantime I'd moved to Suffolk.

"When I think about my nursing one reason I wanted to be a pilates teacher is that nursing became quite stressful particularly working in general practice. Pilates was an opportunity to continue to help people without so much stress."

Pilates overview

Gee explains to us where pilates came from and what it is: "Pilates is kind of a nun aerobic exercise, it focuses on lengthening and strengthening the muscles whilst improving your posture. If you think of why a lot of people have back pain it's because of posture issues. We have a whole generation of kids who are going to be developing more back problems due to computers and technology and the unfortunate posture issues that induces.

"It was originally developed by a chap called Joseph Pilates, in the early part of the 20th century. It was more popular with dancers and gymnasts and his studio that was in New York was above a dance studio so he used to treat lots of dancers."

She continues: "It's now become really popular with anyone, even footballers do pilates, the England squad during the World Cup had their own pilates instructor. He was doing regular classes with them.

"It's suited for anyone at any age. Many people including my clients will be recommended by their doctors because of lower back pain. They come to me with back pain and hip pain. Most people do mat work but the machines really help people develop their mat work as well."

"The machines, what they do is they have springs and they can a kind of add resistance. So they are very good at working specific muscle groups. You can get a whole body workout but you can also target one specific area.

"They add resistance and they can also support you for an exercise. People often think that machine pilates are harder but actually mat pilates are. The machines are really good for a post rehab client of course they need to see their physios and chiropractors but for additional exercises that can help the machines can be really great for that."

"If you have got someone who can't get down onto the floor you can bring them down onto the raised mat. Then you can add load. Pilates will strengthen the weak muscles and the tight muscle will lengthen balancing the muscle groups. There is that mind and body connection you have to be aware of and how you are moving."

Business post Lockdown

Like all businesses Gee had to adapt during the pandemic.

She said: "During lockdown with the fact I had to have two meters between the mats, I had to relocate to the Hadleigh Old School. Because it allowed for social distancing measures to be kept. During lockdown I purchased two other reformers. I do one to one and reformer classes and mat classes keeping in line with social distancing measures.

"Like many people when lockdown was announced I had a whole day of thinking "how is my business going to survive" and it was other groups of pilates teachers that recommended going to online courses on zoom.

"I wasn't tech savvy at the time, my clients were all varied in their abilities but they took it on board. I lost quite a lot of clients, you had some who just weren't able to do it on zoom or had bad connections to their internet, so it was definitely new territory and a bit of a struggle at times. But we were able to keep going which was great."

Gee said: "When we started up again it was a slow build, some clients have come back but not everyone is comfortable yet. All of our studio classes are full though. Mat classes are taking longer to build up and we have more spaces available for those who want to join."

Where to find Gee's Pilates

"There is an online booking system called gym catch. Where you can see my classes and a description and booking of slots and times. We have some spaces available in the mat classes and I teach Mondays to Thursdays."

This is a link to Gee's pilates website if you are interested in trying it out for yourself: Gee Pilates.

To see bookings with Gee visit this link: Gymcatch

If your business is running an event, you can advertise for free with Hadleigh Nub News.

Simply click on this link to our What's On section and click our black Nub It button.

Or if you think you have a story got to this link and click on the black Nub It button to upload your news.