Before you move: what prediction can teach us about Pilates

Oct 19

From a stopped escalator to an unexpectedly empty suitcase, our bodies are constantly preparing for what they expect to happen next.

Have you ever stepped onto an escalator that wasn't moving?

You know it is stationary. You can see that it is stationary. In practical terms, you could simply walk onto it as you would a staircase.

And yet, something feels strangely wrong.

There is a name for this: the broken escalator phenomenon.

Researchers Raymond Reynolds and Adolfo Bronstein studied the effect by asking people to walk onto a platform that was first stationary, then moving, and then stationary again. Even when participants were explicitly told that the platform would no longer move, their bodies continued to show some of the adjustments they had learned when stepping onto the moving surface. They approached faster, showed greater forward sway and increased activity in muscles around the ankle.

They knew what was going to happen. But some of the preparation for what had happened before was already underway.

Before we move, we prepare

I often use another example with my clients. Imagine picking up a suitcase you believe is full, only to discover that it is empty. For a moment, your whole body is surprised. You prepared an amount of effort for a weight that wasn't there.

We make these kinds of movement decisions all the time, mostly without being aware of them. Before we lift, step, land, reach or push, the nervous system is already using previous experience and the information available to organise what happens next. This is useful: we wouldn't want to begin every movement as though we had never encountered the world before.

But the broken escalator shows us something particularly interesting: sometimes what we have learned to expect and what actually happens don't quite match. We receive new information and adjust. We aren't simply producing movements; we are continually preparing, acting, receiving information and changing our response.

When we don't know what to expect

Prediction becomes particularly interesting when we think about pain.

Imagine putting your hand into a box without knowing what is inside. A harmless object can provoke a surprisingly strong reaction when you cannot see or identify it. You might hesitate, brace or pull away before you have enough information to know whether there is actually a threat.

Pain is, of course, far more complex. But uncertainty matters here too.

Pain is not a simple measure of tissue damage. Our experience of it is influenced by context, previous experience, expectations, beliefs and how threatening a situation seems. When we don't understand a sensation or why something hurts, uncertainty can contribute to a sense of threat. We may become more vigilant, more protective, or begin avoiding movements we expect will hurt.

This doesn't mean that pain is imagined, or that understanding pain makes it disappear. It means that what we expect can influence how we prepare for and respond to what we experience.

For me, this is one reason education is part of movement practice. Understanding what we are doing, exploring what a movement actually feels like today, and gradually discovering what the body can tolerate can provide new information.

What does this have to do with Pilates?

I think about this a lot when I teach Pilates at Pilates Incorporated in Amsterdam West. Someone may approach an exercise already expecting it to be difficult. Another person may have learned to brace before a particular movement because it once hurt. Someone familiar with an exercise may begin organising for it before I have finished setting up the equipment.

And sometimes that anticipation is exactly what we want. A well-organised movement doesn't necessarily begin when an arm or leg visibly starts moving; preparation may already be taking place.

As a Pilates instructor, I am interested in that preparation as much as in the movement that follows. How much effort is someone preparing? Does that preparation match what the task actually requires? And can it change when the task changes?

Anticipation and resistance in Pilates

The springs of the Pilates apparatus give us a particularly useful way to explore this. Before we push or pull against a spring, we are already organising ourselves for the resistance we expect to meet. One way of thinking about this is force matching: preparing an amount of force appropriate to the task we expect.

The unexpectedly empty suitcase makes the mismatch obvious. On Pilates equipment, we can explore it more subtly. A spring gives us something concrete to respond to: we anticipate its resistance, organise ourselves to meet it, and continue adjusting as the resistance changes through the movement. Moving slowly through a small range asks something different from moving quickly and further. Changing the spring, speed, range or position changes the task, and therefore the response it requires.

This is one reason I don't think of Reformer Pilates simply as a collection of exercises performed on a machine. The apparatus creates conditions in which we can learn something about how we organise movement.

"Don't relax until you're really done"

This is something my clients hear from me often. When you push a carriage away on the Reformer, the spring continues to act on you as you return. The movement isn't over simply because you've completed the part that felt like the main action; you need to continue responding.

We prepare for force, meet it, modulate our effort as the situation changes and stay involved until the task is complete. For me, control isn't about making movement rigid or holding everything in place. It is the ability to organise effort intentionally and change that organisation according to what the task requires.

How this shapes my teaching

Sometimes a small change in spring resistance reveals that someone was relying on the resistance they expected rather than responding to what was actually there. Sometimes changing the speed, range or starting position completely changes how an exercise is organised.

And sometimes the most useful thing is simply to repeat something long enough to become familiar with a different possibility.

This thinking informs both my private Pilates sessions and small group classes at Pilates Incorporated. The goal isn't to make everyone produce an identical movement. I want the practice to give people opportunities to notice, anticipate, respond and adapt.

A Pilates practice begins before you move

Perhaps your Pilates practice begins a little earlier than you think. Before an exercise becomes visible, you may already be anticipating what is about to happen and organising yourself to meet it. Then the movement gives you new information: you respond, adjust and learn.

Over time, those experiences become part of what you bring to the next exercise. What we see from the outside is only one part of the practice. Underneath it is an ongoing conversation between expectation and experience, preparation and response.

Good practice gives us opportunities to become more aware of that conversation and, with time, to have more choices within it.