From Pilates Hour #224, Polestar’s weekly conversation on movement.
Why kinesiology belongs at the centre of how you teach
In the first Pilates Hour of 2025, Polestar Pilates® founder Dr. Brent Anderson sat down for episode #224, a 59-minute live session titled “What is Kinesiology?”. The conversation was framed as a return to fundamentals for movement professionals and enthusiasts alike, and it was guided throughout by a live audience whose questions shaped the discussion. The episode set out to define kinesiology as the science of movement and to show why every Pilates teacher is, in effect, a kinesiologist — whether they have used the word or not. This matters now more than ever, because the language we use with clients shapes how they move, how they feel about their bodies, and whether they leave a session changed.
Teaching movement is teaching people to think about movement
Dr. Anderson opened with a simple definition: kinesiology is the study of movement, drawn from the Greek roots for “movement” and “knowledge”. But he was quick to expand that definition into something far more practical for teachers. Kinesiology, he explained, is not just anatomy in action. It is the intersection of physiology, biomechanics, and neuropsychology — the study of how bodies move, yes, but also why they move the way they do, and how the brain and nervous system shape every repetition. For a Pilates teacher, this means your job is never to teach a fixed shape. It is to understand the principles behind the movement and to apply them to the person in front of you.
That is why the episode spent time on the four qualitative outcome measures that help a teacher assess movement beyond the mirror: distribution of load and movement, dynamic alignment, control (understood as efficiency rather than holding), and internal locus of control — the client’s sense that they are the one making decisions about their own body. These are not abstract ideals. They are practical lenses for watching a client walk in, sit down, and begin to move. When you watch through these lenses, you stop looking for what is “wrong” and start looking for where the body is organising itself well and where it is struggling to distribute force. That shift is what separates a teacher who can reason from a teacher who can only repeat.
Load, control, and the quiet power of grading effort
A central theme of the conversation was the role of load — not the equipment, but the principle. Dr. Anderson contrasted Pilates with traditional weight training by describing how load is used to teach. In strength training, the goal is often near-maximal effort. In Pilates, the goal is success. By grading load down so that a movement can succeed, the teacher allows the client to experience a movement pattern they might otherwise avoid. This is not about making things easier for the sake of comfort. It is about giving the nervous system a chance to learn at the deepest level.
He also challenged a common assumption about control. Control, he argued, is not the ability to hold a position. It is the ability to move efficiently with the minimum necessary effort. When load is increased, the body naturally responds by creating stronger stabilisation around the joint — not because the teacher told it to, but because that is what the nervous system does when it senses demand. Lighter load, by contrast, teaches the body to organise itself without the added stress of challenge. This is why a movement performed with light load and full attention can be more instructive than the same movement under heavy load, and why teachers should think of load as a teaching tool, not a trophy.
The episode’s most practical insight came from a discussion about who sets the limits. Dr. Anderson was clear that a teacher who imposes limits on a client — deciding in advance how far they should go — is less effective than a teacher who helps the client learn to set their own limits. He described a patient recovering from ACL repair who was also an avid runner. Rather than tell them how far to run, he encouraged them to listen to their body and stop when she felt fatigue. The result was not only better outcomes; it was a shift in the client’s relationship to their own body. They began to trust their own sensation, and that trust became the foundation of her recovery. This is the internal locus of control in action, and it is a skill that can be taught, not just caught.
Breath, self-efficacy, and the felt sense of movement
Another theme that ran through the conversation was the role of breath as something more than a cue. Dr. Anderson described breathing as a tool for calming the nervous system and enhancing thoracic mobility, without ever needing to cue a muscle contraction. This is a subtle but important distinction. Breath is not about engaging; it is about regulating. When a client breathes well, their nervous system settles, their movement becomes more fluid, and they are more present to what is actually happening in their body. This is why the sense of being in the present moment during movement is so powerful — and why Dr. Anderson described watching a skilled mover as like watching someone who appears to have “no bones”, moving with a quality of ease that cannot be faked.
He also shared a striking observation from his own research with patients who had chronic low back pain. He described a study where patients were pushed further than they thought they could go — always in a safe, pain-free context — and the strongest predictor of their functional outcome was not their strength or flexibility, but their self-efficacy: their belief that they could do more than they had assumed. When a client succeeds beyond their own expectations, even in a small way, their whole paradigm shifts. That shift, Dr. Anderson argued, is the real work of teaching. It is why we teach movement at all: not to make people better at a specific exercise, but to help them see themselves as capable, competent, and in control of their own bodies.
He illustrated this with a simple coffee shop experiment. He asked two women to slouch and smile, then to sit tall and smile. They reported that the slouched posture made smiling feel forced, while sitting tall made the smile feel natural. The point was not about posture being “good” or “bad”. It was about how movement and emotion are intertwined — and how a teacher who understands this connection can help clients access a different way of being in the world, simply by inviting them to move differently.
Practical takeaways for movement professionals
- Watch for distribution of movement and load before you look for what is “wrong” — the body is always telling you where it needs help.
- Use load as a teaching variable: grade it down so a movement can succeed, and let lighter load teach organisation rather than challenge.
- Control is efficiency, not holding. Coach for the minimum necessary effort, not the maximum possible tension.
- Help clients set their own limits by asking them what they notice, rather than telling them what they should feel.
- Use breath to regulate the nervous system before you use it to engage muscles — calm is a precondition for learning.
- Create opportunities for clients to exceed their own expectations in a pain-free context; self-efficacy is a better predictor of outcome than strength.
If this conversation has sparked something in you — a new way of thinking about your teaching, or a reason to dive deeper into the science of movement — the full episode is well worth your time. Watch “Pilates Hour #224: What is Kinesiology?” with Dr. Brent Anderson at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOzHfBbTXI and join the next live session to continue the conversation.
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