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What is Pilates anyway?

Pilates has been a bit of a craze here in Australia of late. Many women seem to be jumping on the band wagon and giving pilates classes a try. In this post I want to look at the history and basic principles of pilates to see whether it is a worthwhile workout.

What is Pilates?

Pilates was created by Joseph Pilates in the early 1900’s. He wrote two book on Pilates himself which you can find here:

• Return to Life Through Contrology; and
• Your Health: A Corrective System of Exercising that Revolutionizes the Entire Field of Physical Eduction

Pilates was developed as a system that bed ridden war victims could use to rehabilitate themselves without leaving their beds. As such, the pilates system is centered around exercises that use no external objects or weight. Instead, the movements are calisthenic and are performed on own own on a mat. Simple. However, he later designed some pieces of exercise equipment that could be used for better results.

The movements in Pilates are designed to bring about total body conditioning, strength, flexibility as well as mental health and as such uses the breath in each movement. Because the movements only require one to use one’s own body weight they have been perfect for many rehabilitation practitioners as they can move at their own pace. It is very similar to Yoga in many respects and practitioners of one often find themselves able to perform the other quite well.

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How does Pilates work?

Pilates himself designed 500 movements that make up the Pilates system. He created ‘forms’ whereby one follows a specific order of movements which, when performed in one session, give you a total body workout.

The emphasis in Pilates is not on developing huge muscles but on conditioning the body totally so as to create strength and flexibility. As such it has become very popular in western countries with both young and old people looking to either perform a less intense workout or to supplement their sport or harder workout. That said, Pilates is known to be very difficult in advanced stages. It is the nature of Pilates to allow one to push one’s self to what ever level one is capable of.

Benefits of Pilates

Pilates has many benefits. Some of the more common benefits are:

• Healing of small injuries and muscle damage;
• Strengthening the core thus preventing back injury and healing sore backs;
• All over body conditioning;
• Stress relief;
• Improved posture;
• Better breathing;
• Increased felxibility;
• Improved mental strength.

Anyone can do Pilates and depending on the amount of effort you are willing to put in you will get many benefits from it.

Does anyone here do Pilates?

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