on-demand

The good news is you’re already on the ground! The beauty of on demand workouts, IMO is since you’re home alone in your living room, no one cares!

This is a treat opp to separate performing fitness from doing fitness. And btw classes are structured as progressions which means I’ll always offer multiple options, so you can build confidence in movements that feel more familiar, and progress at your own pace.

Personally, I feel that listening to your body and choosing to modify is the sign of a truly advanced mover and nothing makes me giddier than hearing about how you tailor each class to work for YOUR body.

A client of mine recently posted “I really appreciate how attentive Helen is, as she always has multiple versions of a move, which makes classes feel like a safe space and she gives the best cues.”

BRB CRYING!!!

TBH, I’m literally that person and I watch my own videos for my personal workouts. 🤷‍♀️ 

Even if you’re already super into your workouts, there’s nothing like being able to dedicate your brain powers to feeling the movement and not deciding what comes next.

In fact, I have a client who is a fellow pilates instructor who recently said ”I can't say enough about HPS. I’d recommend Helen to anyone, regardless of where they are in their fitness journey. She has a unique ability to make you feel comfortable, empowered, and capable and I'm grateful to have her as my Pilates instructor.”

I hate that too. UGH.

And for that reason, I always cue using anatomical terminology. Talking about muscles from an anatomical, not aesthetic standpoint to help you cultivate a more neutral relationship with your bod and movement and bonus, helps you understand your own body better!

I think so! That’s honestly the main reason why I created HPS. I looked around and couldn’t seem to find a workout that did it all. There were plenty of feel good mindful movement classes that were pleasant but didn’t make me sweat— and there were endless hardcore gym bro vibe workouts that were so incredibly eye roll-y or toxic that I couldn’t deal.

HPS splits the difference and delivers athletic workouts without the diet culture narrative.

All bodies respond differently to food and exercise. Without knowing about your specific genetic predisposition, access to healthy food, and socioeconomic standing, it’d be not only impossible for me to tell you that across the interwebs, but pretty skeezy, too. And if you’re looking for someone to lie to you and promise something that’s just not physically possible for some people (and also not really correlated with health at all— appearance is not a behavior), then, well, bonne chance out there! 🫡

It’s an unsexy answer, but an honest one: it depends.

The more practice you get taking care of yourself and the more regular dopamine hits you get FROM taking care of yourself, and the more restructuring of your previous thought patterns you do, the more you’ll be able to helps cultivate self trust and pride in your body.

It’s a process, but it absolutely does happen if you’re patient with yourself.

Most HPS classes are under 30 minutes because we’ve got things to do and people to see!

I’m a big fan of fitness, obvi, but fitness should never be someone’s whole life. I make sure my classes take you to muscle failure quickly, so you can get on with your life.

The HPS method also beautifully supports other modalities and sports, so you’ll notice the difference in your tennis serve and your ski swerves right away.

HPS is based on the fact that it’s a lot easier to get something done when you don’t hate it. The nicer you are to yourself when you workout will make you hate the whole thing less.

Extrinsic motivation (relying on being perceived) is powerful, but it’s intrinsic motivation (having your own legitimate reasons to keep you going) is where it’s at in terms of sustained, long term consistency.

Hey, I get it. I love studios!

But life does not always make it possible to hit a studio— it’s extra commute, it’s way more money, and it’s someone else’s schedule. IMO, done is better than perfect, so, even if a luxurious boutique studio with Kiehl’s soap and Diptyque candles is your idealized fitness experience, having HPS to help you maintain and upkeep without the fancy accoutrement is way more manageable and means you’ll see and feel more results.

And hey, with your extra $$$, you can buy yourself the damn Diptyque candle.

Youtube is great. But you’re a lot more likely to waste 15 of your 30 minutes alotted to fitness scrolling through creators, and Xing out of videos that annoy you halfway through.

I am a highly specialized and highly trained certification collector, so you know my classes are safe, effective, and hard, plus the HPS platform offers curated challenges, and bespoke filters to help you zero in on the right class for you right away.

And not for nothing…even though HPS is super affordable, there’s a way different energy around something you’ve invested moolah in than something your consuming for free when it comes time to holding yourself accountable to actually DO the classes.

I’m a comprehensively certified pilates instructor with over 600 hours of specialized pilates training and ten years of experience teaching in NYC.

I fell in love with pilates as the TA for the Somatic Theory courses while I was in college studying dance and psychology, and was hooked.

I’ve trained in prenatal/postpartum corrective exercise, pilates for the elderly, pilates for scoliosis, functional anatomy for movement injuries, pilates for back pain…the list goes on! You can check out more info on certifications I’ve done here.

More important that what a pilates nerd I am, I know how toxique working out for the sole purpose of “sculpting” can get. Back in my dancing days, I was the epitome of the “no days off” type that makes my eyes roll back in my head so much now.

The scariest thing about it was that my militant devotion to wellness may have appeared healthy from the outside, but it actually heightened my anxiety, zapped my energy, and even prompted an over-exercising injury that forced me to stop dancing.

I had to find a way to reconcile my love of movement with my disinterest in participating in toxic wellness, and Helen Phelan Studio was born.