PT Elevated| Pilates and Movement | Brent Anderson

Welcome back to a NEW season of PT Elevated where we are broadening our topics to include more researchers but still focusing on topics that you can use in your clinic every day. This season some of our speakers are guests who will be live in-person at the EIM Align Conference this August 26-28 in Dallas, Texas.

On our ninth episode of season 3, Brent Anderson, PhD, PT, OCS, PMA®-CPT, owner and Founder of Polestar Pilates and Co-founder of Runity.run joins! He is a former dancer and been a PT for over 30 years. He is also a world lecturer and educator. He first opened Anderson Physical Therapy (APT) in Sacramento, CA. It was one of the first physical therapy centers specializing in Pilates based rehabilitation and performance enhancement. By 1994, a second APT facility was integrating Pilates into rehabilitation, dance medicine, cross-training, and wellness. Rehabilitation and Pilates practitioners from around the world visited Sacramento to observe and study this exciting new treatment approach. By 1997, Brent moved his practice to Miami, FL from 3,000 to 12,000 square feet of space.

A Doctor of Physical Therapy and orthopedic certified specialist for more than 13 years, Brent is a leading authority in performing arts medicine and Pilates-evolved techniques for rehabilitation. He lectures nationally and internationally at symposia as well as consults with professional dance companies, schools, and observatories throughout the world. In this episode Brent expands on his extensive background between teaching and business. They discuss movement how Brent uses Pilates in that aspect, the benefits of getting into active movement, general misconceptions about pilates people have and more! Here are some of the highlights:

Brent says sometimes he thinks the number of hats we wear has a direct correlation with how old we are. If we have stayed active, if we are pursuing new information then it is like our hats will continue to grow.”   Brent danced semi-professionally years ago, while he was in physical therapy school at UC San Francisco 35 years ago, he was taking dance class and his dance teacher told him about pilates. She told him to check it out the new dance medicine center at St. Francisco Hospital and he fell in love with it immediately. He met his partner Elizabeth who was his partner in Polestar pilates for 10 years. They traveled around and introduced pilates to the rehabilitation world. Brent then moved to Sacramento to have his own physical therapy practice. At that time, they introduced pilates education in a formal education way to be able to be certified in pilates in 1992. Polestar Pilates is in 67 countries with 16,000 graduates today.