Shannon Quirke opens brand new state-of-the-art Thurles fitness studio

The world famous pilates instructor Romana Kryzanowska, who studied the practice under its founder Joseph Pilates and his wife Clara at their studio in New York, famously said that pilates can be summarised as a “stretch with strength and control... and the control part is the most important because that makes you use your mind”.

Pilates continues to be one of the fastest growing workouts of choice in recent years and boasts a whole host of health benefits.

With a background in radiography, extensive Pilates training, and an appetite for physical and mental wellbeing, it’s no surprise that Shannon Quirke’s new state-of-the-art studio looks and feels like the real deal.

forme (pronounced ‘for me’) is, in Shannon’s words, a “space to move, reset, and reconnect”.

Located in the heart of Thurles town, forme offers yoga classes, traditional mat Pilates, as well as reformer Pilates, a unique selling point in what is Shannon’s first venture into the business world.

“Growing up I always had a huge interest in sport like playing camogie, and it was in secondary school that I really started to love Pilates. I did my mat Pilates teacher training with Complete Body Movement in Dublin and also studied to become a radiographer.

“I've done a bit of travelling with that, I've been in Australia and that’s where I found the reformer and fell in love with that. Since coming home I did my reformer specific training with Reformation in Dublin and that basically pushed me into opening up my own place.”

Reformer Pilates takes all the teachings and benefits of the more traditional form of Pilates, and adds a sense of resistance training using a spring-powered machine called a reformer.

Ahead of the launch of forme, Shannon had no less than eight reformer machines shipped across the Atlantic from the United States in order to become one of the few establishments across the county to offer the service.

“I would say the reformer matches up very well with mat Pilates. So your concentration, your alignment, your posture, your breathing, that kind of thing, and both have the same goals like improving strength, flexibility, mobility, but with the reformer, you have springs, which give resistance.

“It’s great because they can be tailored for all types of people and made tougher accordingly. Past experience with mat Pilates will give you a good grounding in terms of what the reformer will target and how it will feel, but it’s definitely not essential. It's a huge industry in Australia and seems to be becoming more and more popular around the world.”

As mentioned earlier, Shannon’s professional background includes years of working as a radiographer. She told the Tipperary Star that a career in healthcare most certainly comes in handy when it comes to teaching Pilates and running classes at forme.

“Along with a deep understanding of anatomy and physiology, I have practical knowledge of injuries and medical conditions, things I draw on every day when adapting exercises to suit different bodies and needs.

“My clinical experience has also made me highly observant and detail-oriented, which really helps when spotting subtle movement patterns, compensations, or postural imbalances.

“Alongside these skills, the empathy and communication abilities I developed in healthcare have been invaluable in understanding clients’ individual experiences and building the supportive, inclusive community at forme, which although is very new, is something i'm really proud of already. It's a space for everyone and I can't wait to watch it grow into something bigger.”

It’s worth noting that this new studio doesn’t stop at Pilates, and offers a healthy variety of yoga classes too.

This includes hot yoga classes, which utilise a number of infrared heating panels and are designed to heat the people in the room rather than the air itself for a more comfortable experience.

“They provide lots of benefits, such as improved flexibility, circulation, cardiovascular health, detoxication, and they can help to improve your sleep as well.

“The heaters work differently to regular heaters in that they’ll heat your body and other objects rather than the air. So you don’t have that stuffy feeling or the huge gathering of steam in the studio. You see them a lot nowadays in the likes of recovery place and modern saunas.

One of Shannon’s priorities when designing forme and building the space was making sure that people feel welcome and in a safe and trusting environment.

“It’s was and still is a huge consideration. I really wanted to make this a welcoming space and I want to make sure that people of all abilities and experience can come here and that they’ll feel stronger, more confident, and healthier.

“We’ll have people that are coming back from an injury, people that are looking for a new way to keep fit, and also people that want to just have an hour of mindful movement in their day. There’s definitely something here for everybody, that was always a huge goal of mine when taking this on.”

forme is open above Ely’s Centra on The Mall in Thurles. More information can be found on their Instagram account or on www.formepilates.ie

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