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Pilates
Also known as "body control", Pilates teaches sequences of stretching, movement, balance and posture which helps build strength in muscles and bones.
What is Pilates?What is Pilates good for?
Before you go
Precautions
What to expect
Hot tip!
Afterwards
Different types of Pilates
What is Pilates?
Pilates is a deep body-conditioning technique that strengthens muscles and improves balance and posture. Like yoga, Pilates involves you learning a series of poses and stretches and helps tone and strengthen your muscles; unlike yoga, Pilates does not usually involve meditation and is not an aerobic exercise.
Devised by Joseph Pilates in the 1920s, Pilates aims to teach you how to use your muscles properly to protect and support you, preventing injury and strain. For this reason, Pilates is increasingly popular with people whose work is very physically demanding, from ballerinas to prop forwards to builders.
What is Pilates good for?
Because Pilates helps to increase flexibility, and strengthen the muscles that support bones, chiropractors, osteopaths, back specialists and physiotherapists now recommend Pilates to people who have a recent or persistent injury. Pilates can improve physical strength and fitness in a variety of ways.
It can:
* improve your general fitness and body awareness
* prevent injury or muscle strain
* rebuild and strengthen damaged muscle tissue
* improve your posture
* reduce stress and anxiety, and so aid sleep
* increase your flexibility and strength
* improve your coordination.
Pilates is particularly good for pregnant women as it can help improve posture and weight-bearing, reducing the risk of injury and pain.
Before you go
Wear something comfortable that allows you to move freely. You're likely to spend a lot of time on the floor so you might want to take a clean set of clothes to change into before you leave.
Precautions
There are two big precautions in terms of Pilates:
Find a qualified teacher: Pilates is great for preventing injury and rehabilitating people who've had injuries. But if the teacher is not qualified, the opposite can be true. Don't put yourself in unqualified hands.
If you do have a back problem, you make sure that your teacher knows about it: what it is, how long it's been going on, any medical information you can. Pilates has become known for helping people with back problems. This can be true, but it is not a one-cure-fits-all.
If you bear these two precautions in mind, you should be on track to reap the benefits of Pilates.
What to expect
Pilates is usually done in one of three context: "studio" with three or four other people; "mat" with up to 10 people; and one-to-one with the teacher. Usually some gentle background music is played, just to create a relaxed atmosphere.
The essence of Pilates is that it works on building your core strength, which is centred around your stomach, firming and building those muscles. From here, you can work out to all the other parts of your body. After general breathing exercises and possibly some light stretches, you will then move to working on your core strength, before going on to particular muscle groups. All the work you do with the teacher is personalised and tailored just for your needs.
One of the special things about Pilates is that it enables you to target even the smallest muscle in very specific ways: got a pain in your leg? Pilates could offer more than 50 exercises to target that pain. Pilates is not aerobic exercise; it is gentle, cautious, and strengthening. A session usually lasts about an hour.
Hot tip!
To get the most out of Pilates, it's important to really understand the underlying concept of what you're trying to do, and to be able to focus on your muscle groups and what you're doing so that the exercises are really effective, for you. Ask lots of questions so that you really know what you're doing.
Afterwards
As Pilates is not an aerobic exercise, you will not be sweaty or tired out afterwards as you would after a session of, for example, Astanga yoga. Many people say they feel lighter, energised and relaxed after Pilates. You'll be perfectly fit to go back to work or wherever else when you've finished your class.
Different types of Pilates
Pilates is a quite specific discipline. The exercises within it vary enormously but there are not different types of Pilates as such.
See also:
* Yoga
* Gyms
* Massage
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