What is Pilates?
So, first of all, if you ever wondered where the name "Pilates" came from, it comes from the name of its creator, Joseph Hubertus Pilates who was born in Germany in 1881. He developed his fitness regime which he called "Contrology" while interned in England during WW1. After the war, he moved to New York and with his partner, Clara and started training dancers who were attracted by the long, lean muscles that the system created.
Pilates, as a system of physical and mental conditioning was developed by Joseph Pilates in the 1920’s. During this time, he created a series of exercises for the mat and equipment, using his knowledge of gymnastics, boxing, martial arts and yoga and Eastern and Western philosophy.
While Joe was undoubtedly ahead of his time when it comes to the design of his mat and apparatus exercises, many of the exercises that he recommended are taught in a modified form today because we know how the body works much better.
However, having said that, a lot of the exercises are still taught as originally designed. The aim of the exercises is to encourage the body to work as a kinetic whole. And, the exercises, when taught in order do make a coherent whole body workout.
If you ever Google images of Joe Pilates, you'll see many pictures of him in his tighty-whiteys doing some strange stuff. The picture below of him standing on someone while they do The Hundred, is not untypical. I do not encourage any of my gentleman participants to come to class dressed like this. Nor will I ever stand on your stomach while you work out. You're welcome.
Is Pilates the same as yoga then?
Joe Pilates definitely took inspiration from yoga, as well as from other disciplines. If you've done yoga , then you might recognise some of the exercises that we do in Pilates.
A great way of thinking about the difference between the two is that yoga is a spiritual practice consisting of a series of poses and postures where you use your physical effort to bring stillness to the mind.
Pilates on the other hand is a physical practice where you use concentration, control, flow, breath, centring and precision to execute a series of exercises. Not to say that you won't get stillness of the mind arising as a benefit of Pilates (it's really great for quieting a constantly active brain!).
What sorts of exercises will I do in Pilates?
Well, you’ll use your body weight (and sometimes some other small equipment) to improve your strength and flexibility (aka mobility).
We work standing, lying down on your back and on your side, kneeling and on all fours so you are challenging your body in lots of different positions. It’s not an aerobic class, meaning that you won’t be sweating buckets and be out of breath. But we do focus on small, controlled movements and on our breathing. And you'll still be working hard so you might break a light sweat!
There are thirty-four exercises in the classical mat repertoire (as it's known). The exercises, when done together in order, tend to be clustered in threes and follow a "prep, exercise, release" pattern. For example, The Hundred - warm up your abs and back; Rollup - use your abs and back; Rollover - release your back and abs. If you're on Instagram
or Facebook, check out my posts every March where I post a picture or video of each of the exercises for #Marchmatness.
What's Pilates good for?
All the little things – did you know that your ability to get out of a chair and to stand on one leg with your eyes closed are both good indicators of how long you’ll live? We work on exercises that will improve your ability to perform both of these tests.
The mobility that you’ll gain from doing Pilates will also improve your posture, your general quality of life and your ability to perform those day to day tasks (lifting shopping, picking things up from the floor, picking yourself up from the floor!) that can become challenging as we get older.
Oh, and Mr A LOVES what he calls “Pilates Sleep” – that is the sleep that you have the night you’ve done Pilates.
Is Pilates just for women?
Is The Seal a real exercise?
Whatever you privately think, it's not my attempt to make you roll around like a four year old and amuse myself in class. It's actually number thirty in the repertoire.
Want to try a class? Check out this
blog to learn what you can expect in your first class and then click
here to try your first class for free
