Go looking for bodywork and movement work and you’ll usually end up with two practitioners who never speak to each other. Sophia Thorsen is both, in one room, on the same afternoon.
She’s taught Pilates for over twenty years and added orthopedic massage therapy in 2019. She works out of Northside Community Pilates at 900 Middle Street in East Allegheny.
Her own case for the combination: quality movement from Pilates, paired with strategic, well-planned manual release work, gets people faster and longer-lasting results than either does alone. In practice the release work is followed by something that helps it hold, which is the difference between feeling wonderful for two days and still feeling it in a month.
Who she sees
Athletes, dancers, weekend warriors and senior citizens. People rehabilitating from injury. People living with chronic pain, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Ehlers-Danlos and scoliosis.
Her list runs orthopedic massage, myofascial release, manual lymphatic drainage, neuromuscular therapy, oncology massage, hospice massage, intraoral work, assisted stretching and breathwork.
She teaches this, too
Sophia is on the faculty at McKinnon Body Therapy Center, where she teaches anatomy, physiology and pathology to massage therapists in training, along with how to work with people living with and recovering from cancer, heart disease and neurological conditions.
She graduated the Advanced Teacher Training Program at The Pilates Center in Boulder in 2001, qualified at McKinnon in 2019, and practises NeuroKinetic Therapy at level 1.
The studio is at 900 Middle Street, with free two-hour street parking, and it’s ADA compliant. Orthopedic bodywork is $140, and manual lymphatic drainage is available too.
17 Google reviews, 5.0 average.