Wunda chair

Dear bloggie,

Harry Potter have the sorting hat to tell which house he belong to,
Snow White's wicked step mother have the magic mirror to tell who's the prettiest,
Neo had the Oracle to tell him he's NOT the choose one,
I had a wunda chair to tell me where my muscle imbalance was...

Went to my 2nd reformer class today... Sadly, onli 2 ppl (including me) today.

So the instructor asked if wanna play other pilates toy today... Seems like can sometimes swap equipment to play one instead of play the reformer everytime. 2 people can play wunda chair or ladder barrel, 4 people can play Cadillac... Tis time, we get to play the Wunda chair...

To be frank, the wunda chair is perhaps the pilates equipment that I' most curious on. Why? Cause I wondering how a damn chair can be used to do pilates exercises. I was thinking maybe something like tis:



Hahaha... Sadly not like the vid exercise one :(

But how does a "real" wunda chair look like u ask? Like tis loh:



Tis toy actually was originally made from a chair by Joseph Pilates (Founder/Inventor of Pilates) and can actually double duty as a pilates equipment and a real chair. Anyway, what so c00l about tis chair? Well, for starters it allows us to do the same exercise done in the reformer. The only difference is it allows you to also find some imbalance that you normally can't see so clearly on a reformer.

What I mean? Well, for instance the leg extend exercise (Extends leg then bring back leg so hip 90 degrees to floor), when I do on reformer, I could do with no problem but when I do on the chair, it seems I have problem with the concentric part of the movement (ie: The bring back leg part). Also the leg pedal which gives spring resistance when you extend you leg for the chair can be separated. This means, instead of pushing one pedal with 2 legs, you're pushing 2 pedals with a leg on each. It's like bench press vs dumbbell press. What da difference you ask? Well, if you do bench, one common problem is one usually compensate strength with their more dominant arm. Say I bench press 40kg but in reality, my right hand is actually doing maybe 22.5kg while my left onli doing 17.5kg (Usually can see by when someone press the bar up, if got imbalance one side will go up first one). But if you do with dumbbell, since your right hand can't help you left hand, both are doing the same weight. So understand the logic here? Since I can't really sync both legs when I do the concentric part of the exercise hence got muscle imbalance.

Also another exercise, dips on the chair reveal another problem for me. My dips was like my leg, can't sync. Then the instructor told us to do child pose on the chair, which he saw from afar my middle back muscle was unbalance. He told me that my left middle back muscle was stronger (Wish I could see how to tell from look which muscle is stronger, bigger bulge maybe?) which result in me having more balance in exercises which uses my right arm. Not this is a rather odd thing since how come middle left muscle stronger but when do right arm exercise more stable, shouldn't it be left arm more balance meh? So, the instructor told me (well, from what I interpret la) the back muscle when used to balance will fire in a cross pattern one. Means if I use right arm, my left lower back will link to my right shoulder to fire one. So my right lower back weaker than my left, so when link to my left shoulder results in my left arm exercise not so stable. Interesting noes? The human anatomy...

Anyway, today class was more interesting than last weeks cause 2 people onli... Common pay for group but get duet class, damn tai mah... Got tis urge to get the wunda chair to play at home but from the price I checked f*ckin expensive sh*t... Probably 3K above... CB, one chair also so expensive... Tiu...

Side note, I went to checkout the other pilates center where I will be doing my prerequisite workshop (Decided to do workshop 1st then do course in November)... At Jalan Batai in Damansara Heights. F*ckin hard to find without GPS. I found Jalan Batai quite easily but couldn't find the studio cause all I see is housing area onli. Tiu, after rounding and rounding in the housing area... tulan de went exit onli saw a few shop lots inside a parking lot area (WTF! The shop lot IS inside the parking lot)... Went in, saw the sign... I think around 20 minutes drive from Midvalley, just use Jalan maarof till see Bukit Damansara then follow the damn sign boards. Parking Rm 1 after 6pm, but traffic dunno how cause need pass Bangsar area... Still undecided if wanna go mat class there to train.