Explaining the fundamental Eight Principles through core programmes, this volume provides 'Pilates prescriptions' for your specific needs. It serves as a useful reference for various issues ranging from back pains, posture problems to prevention of common sports injuries and training your children to use their bodies properly.

This book aims at providing algorithms for balance control of legged, torque-controlled humanoid robots. A humanoid robot normally uses the feet for locomotion. This paradigm is extended by addressing the challenge of multi-contact balancing, which allows a humanoid robot to exploit an arbitrary number of contacts for support. Using multiple contacts increases the size of the support polygon, which in turn leads to an increased robustness of the stance and to an increased kinematic workspace of the robot. Both are important features for facilitating a transition of humanoid robots from research laboratories to real-world applications, where they are confronted with multiple challenging scenarios, such as climbing stairs and ladders, traversing debris, handling heavy loads, or working in confined spaces. The distribution of forces and torques among the multiple contacts is a challenging aspect of the problem, which arises from the closed kinematic chain given by the robot and its environment.

A self-help manual focusing on back pain prevention and rehabilitation using the unique Pilates body conditioning system 3 in 5 of us will suffer from backache in our lives. In order to mitigate against the worst-case scenario, use Pilates to strengthen your back and also the supporting muscles so that it doesn't take all the strain. Pilates has a strong reputation in tackling back problems and many doctors, osteopaths and physiotherapists are already endorsing its unique quality to exercise deeply but gently and to rebalance the posture (many are opening Pilates centres in their surgeries). The Back Book is a one-stop reference guide, explaining how the back works, why backache occurs, the different types of back pain, when to seek professional help, lifestyle tips for prevention and exercises to promote flexibility and hold the correct posture. For those already suffering, a special remedial programme of exercises is designed to restore mobility. With brand new exercises and the expertise of Paul Massey, Chief Physiotherapist to Britain's Olympic Swimming team, leading Pilates practitioner Lynne Robinson can help you bypass or overcome this most common of agonies.

Pilates exercises are safe and effective, working on improving the tone and alignment of the body by targeting the key postural muscles. They are suitable for all, from the first-time exerciser to someone with chronic back pain, and are used by top athletes, actors and performers. Body Control - the Pilates Way introduces this unique system through forty exercises with programmed combinations, fully illustrated with photographs and muscle or joint explanations.

Today's society is obsessed with the body, its size, shape and healthiness. Governments, business and the popular media, spend and earn fortunes encouraging populations to get healthy, eat properly, exercise daily and get thin. But how are current social trends and attitudes towards the body reflected in the curriculum of schools, in the teaching of Physical Education and Health? How do teachers and health professionals influence young people's experiences of their own and others' bodies? Is health education liberating or merely another form of regulation and social control? Drawing together some of the latest research on the body and schooling, Body Knowledge and Control offers a sharp and challenging critique of (post) modern-day attitudes toward obesity, health, childhood and the mainstream science and business interests that promote narrow body-centred ways of thinking. Includes: * A critical history of notions of body, identity and health in schools. * Analysis of the 'obesity epidemic', eating disorders * Analysis of the influence of nurtured body image in racism, sexism, homophobia and body elitism in schools.

Introduction to the Pilates technique, a cross between yoga and physiotherapy.

This book will help you assess and treat patients with neurological impairment resulting in dysfunctional or abnormal muscle tone. The material concentrates on achieving upper extremity function for personal autonomy. Because the upper extremities work in synchrony with the rest of the body, the text covers significant aspects of whole body movement as well. Thus, though the book is written by an occupational therapist, physical therapists and speech pathologists will find the information applicable to gait and respiration. This information can be applied to patients of any age or size. The illustrations alternate the use of small and large bodies, so one can generalize visualizations. The intervention strategies presented reflect a strong neurodevelopmental treatment orientation. However, the analysis of component parts of movement and the review of significant aspects of normal and abnormal development have evolved from the integration of anatomical and kinesiological perspectives. Our kinesiology illustrations are intended to help you visualize the position of the muscle and the related skeletal parts. As one provides treatment, these visual images will guide the location and direction of touch.