Massive Quads, Little Hammies

So in my effort to "mix it up" I went to Pilates class last Friday. There were only three of us and when I came in the teacher was scarfing some sushi before we started. I thought: "this is someone I can relate to!"  She proceeded to give us small squishy balls and told us to roll them under our feet to activate and massage those muscles, something I've never seen or done before. Makes sense right? We torture our feet in shoes that hurt and walk around without arch support and never really take care of them in response. It sometimes hurt like hell as she told me to "really press hard" but felt awesome. Gotta get one for the hizzy so I can do it while watching law and order!!

Since the class was so small she could really spend some time with each of us and help us with form. I've done a bunch of Pilates classes but usually phone some of the moves in when they get too hard. She came over to me and kept correcting me which is one of the things I sort of find annoying but at the same time I appreciated it. She noticed that my weakness seemed to be in my butt and definitely in my hamstrings. At the end of the class after we rolled our butts on the little ball to take care of the largest muscle in our body (and that hurt like hell BTW) she spent another few minutes with me and told me my hamstring to quad proportion was totally out of wack and if I don't get that more in balance knee injuries might recur. Now this is something I've always known about myself (referring to my legs as horselike etc.) but I figured it was genetic and there wasn't much to be done about it but Emily has given me hope!

So, my mission now is to keep mixing it up, but to really actively try to work on strengthening the hamstrings and smoothing out the quads. I'm going to try to go to Emily's class once a week and I'll report back of course...