Pilates & Beyond
In conventional workouts, weak muscles tend to become weaker and strong muscles tend to become stronger. This can result in muscular imbalance, a primary cause of injury and chronic back pain. Pilates conditions your entire body and promotes balanced musculature, flexibility, and agility. It is both an art form and a great workout, which can help you enjoy daily activities and sports with greater ease and decreased risk of injury.
At The San Francisco Bay Club, you'll find the most comprehensive Pilates program at any athletic club: Pilates & Beyond. Our unique approach features a variety of classes taught by expert instructors, private instruction in our Personal Pilates & Gyrotonic® Studio, sport-specific training, Pilates performances, parties, and more.
To learn more about the tenets of this discipline that is both an art form and an exemplary workout, contact Elizabeth Larkam, director of Pilates & Beyond, at 415.901.9310 or e-mail pilates@sfbayclub.com.
Director Elizabeth Larkam
Elizabeth is internationally recognized as an innovator of Mind Body movement techniques for fitness, clinical, entertainment, arts and academic settings. She transforms Pilates techniques by taking a Feldenkrais approach to mat and apparatus vocabulary, infusing core control with rotation, arcs, and spirals to create movement that is functional, healing, and aesthetically pleasing.
Elizabeth began her study of Pilates techniques in 1985 while teaching dance at Stanford University. A guild-certified Feldenkrais practitioner, certified Gyrotonic® and Gyrokinesis™ instructor, Elizabeth received her bachelor's and master's education at Stanford University. She is scheduled to complete her OM Yoga instructor certification in July 2005. Elizabeth has worked as a Pilates and Dancemedicine Specialist with the San Francisco Ballet, Cirque de Soleil, and at the Center for Sports Medicine at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. While director of the Saint Francis program, she developed Pilates protocols for rehabilitation of a number of orthopedic and spine diagnoses.
Elizabeth is a lecturer at the University of San Francisco in exercise and sports science, a mind-body spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise, and a Reebok Master Trainer. She is a contributor to and member of the Advisory Board of PilatesStyle. Since 1992 Elizabeth has created 30 instructional videos/DVDs for fitness, rehabilitation, and home markets. As program director of Balanced Body Pilates, she created the instructional video series that launched the Pilates Allegro Reformer. She also created the Mat with Roller & Ring program, Mat with Rotator Discs, Reebok Core Pilates, BOSU Pilates, and PilatesPerformance.