Stephen McClure
Stephen McClure has spent more than 14 years in health and fitness, and more than 12 of those teaching Pilates. That is long enough to have watched every shortcut fail. He holds a comprehensive Pilates certification of more than 1,000 hours, the full apparatus track rather than a mat-only credential, and it shows in how quickly he can tell whether a movement is being produced by the muscle that ought to be producing it. He also teaches yoga, tai chi and martial arts, and those are not a sideline. They share the same preoccupation Pilates has with breath, posture and the controlled transfer of weight, so having all four in his hands gives him more than one way to explain the same idea to a body that did not respond to the first one. His title here is senior Pilates instructor and rehabilitation specialist. He is not a physical therapist, and the work he does sits alongside physical therapy rather than standing in for it.
Shout out to pilates instructor, Steve McClure at Wellness Solutions in Lake Forest.
What guides the work.
Experience buys patience. Stephen does not chase a hard exercise for its own sake, and he does not let anyone grind out repetitions that are quietly being done wrong. Work is scaled to what is controllable now and progressed once the control is real, which is slower to look impressive and considerably faster to hold.
He teaches the reason behind the movement as well as the movement. Someone who understands why a shoulder blade needs to sit where it sits will keep putting it there when nobody is watching, and that is where the lasting change happens. Sessions are one to one. If your Pilates work sits inside a physical therapy plan of care, it is coordinated with the licensed physical therapist directing that plan. If you are here to build strength, mobility and staying power on your own terms, that is reason enough on its own.