Colleen Rowell
(née O'Neill)
BSc (Hons)
MCSP
SRP
APPI certified
About / Your instructor
Meet Colleen.
Chartered Physiotherapist and fully certified APPI Pilates instructor.
Colleen qualified as a Chartered Physiotherapist from the University of Ulster in 2004. She has worked in a number of posts in the main teaching hospitals of Belfast, gaining a wide and varied range of experience. Her speciality now lies in the assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, including spinal pain, sports injuries and orthopaedics.
She became a fully certified APPI Pilates instructor a number of years ago, and her love for Pilates has been growing ever since. Colleen is a mum of three young children and has found Pilates a useful way to stay healthy while pregnant and to get back in shape after the birth.
breathe
What is Pilates?
A mind and body approach to a stronger spine.
Pilates is a low impact form of exercise aimed at improving spinal stability and posture. It strengthens the deep abdominal and gluteal muscles, which help to support your lower back and hips.
It improves body awareness while challenging the body to build strength and endurance. Over time you can see better posture, less pain, and more strength, flexibility and conditioning through the whole body.
Pilates suits all ages and fitness levels, and can be done on your own or in a group, at different levels and paces. It can be particularly helpful for back pain, sports injuries, arthritis and stress-related illness.
Why physio-led?
Safe, effective, and pitched at your level.
Our Pilates instructors are Senior Chartered Physiotherapists. They spend much of their working lives assessing, treating and prescribing therapeutic exercise for a wide range of pain and movement problems, and have years of practice teaching every level safely.
We teach the APPI (Australian Physiotherapy and Pilates Institute) modified Pilates method. APPI is the only Pilates institute in Europe founded and directed by fully qualified physiotherapists. They adapted Joseph Pilates' original exercises, first devised for elite athletes, so that people of all abilities can benefit.
The exercises are graded so you recruit the correct deep core muscles first. Then we build up the load and balance challenge, for more strength, stability and flexibility, always under the guidance of an experienced physiotherapist.
From a client
"Colleen's great at motivating, ensuring you go at your own pace but maximising your capabilities, always checking that you're not doing anything to injure yourself."
Tracey McKittrick