What is Pilates

The main theory of the Pilates Method is that instead of performing many repetitions of each exercise, fewer more precise movements, requiring control and form are done. Pilates designed more than 500 specific exercises to form the entire Pilates Method, but today only a small selection of these are practised in Pilates classes. The most frequent form, called “mat work,” involves a series of callisthenic motions performed without weight or apparatus on a padded mat. Pilates believed that mental health and physical health were essential to one another and created a method of total body conditioning that emphasizes proper alignment, centring, concentration, control, precision, breathing, and flowing movement (The Pilates Principles) that results in increased flexibility, strength, muscle tone, body awareness, energy, and improved mental concentration. Pilates also designed five major pieces of unique Pilates exercise equipment that he claimed should be used for best results. Although the two components are often taught separately now, the method was always meant to combine both mat work and equipment exercises. Pilates practitioners use their own bodyweight to build strength and flexibility. This is targeted without a focus on high-powered cardiovascular exercise. In all forms, the “powerhouse” (abdomen, lower back, and buttocks) is supported and strengthened, enabling the rest of the body to move freely.

Source: Pilates Workouts for Health and Fitness | Fitness and Strength Workouts

Pilates Today

Today, Pilates is used in the rehabilitation process by many physical therapists. Pilates is an old approach to movement re-education that is becoming popular in the field of fitness and rehabilitation. The Pilates environment can be used as an assisted environment that optimizes the acquisition of movement with a reduction of destructive forces and can be used to progress individuals through more challenging movements that represent their day-to-day activities. Pilates’ focus on building core muscles and postural awareness are especially well indicated for the alleviation and prevention of back pain.

In more recent years Pilates has been the subject of peer review research articles and is now gaining acceptance amongst the medical profession, even for conditions previously contra-indicated such as pregnancy. Some doctors have suggested that medical advice be sought by those who have, or who have risk factors for, medical conditions such as osteogenesis imperfecta, Osteomalacia, osteoporosis, and Paget’s disease, before choosing Pilates over other strength exercises. However, there are Pilates practitioners who specialise in medical and clinical rehab. If you have a condition which needs medical attention it is best to work in consultation with an Orthopedic doctor or Physical Therapist in conjunction with the Pilates method in addition to finding an experienced Pilates practitioner.

Pilates largely avoids high impact, high power output, and heavy muscular and skeletal loading. The emphasis is not simply building muscle mass. Its focus is unique in its emphasis on lengthening and alignment, and it can successfully train muscles which bodybuilding and conventional gym aerobics can just as easily avoid. That’s how it prevents injury.

Source: Pilates Workouts for Health and Fitness | Fitness and Strength Workouts

Joseph Pilates Biography

Joseph H. Pilates was born in 1883 in Moenchengladbach, Germany. His father was a prize-winning gymnast of Greek ancestry, and his mother worked as a naturopath. The family originally spelled their surname in the Greek manner as “Pilatu”, but changed to using “Pilates.” This caused Joseph Pilates much grief as a child, because older boys taunted him calling him “Pontius Pilate, killer of Christ.

Pilates was a sickly child and suffered from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever, and he dedicated his entire life to improving his physical strength. Besides skiing frequently, he began studying body-building, yoga, zen and gymnastics yoga, zen, and gymnastics. By the age of 14, he was fit enough to pose for anatomical charts. Pilates came to believe that the “modern” life-style, bad posture, and inefficient breathing lay at the roots of poor health. He ultimately devised a series of exercises and training-techniques and engineered all the equipment, specifications, and tuning required to teach his methods properly.

Pilates was originally a gymnast, diver, and bodybuilder, but when he moved to England in 1912, he earned a living as a professional boxer, circus-performer, and self-defense trainer at police schools and Scottland Yard. Nevertheless, the British authorities interned him during World War I along with other German citizens in a camp on the Ilse of Man. During this involuntary break, he began to intensively develop his concept of an integrated, comprehensive system of physical exercise, which he himself called “Contrology.” He studied yoga and the movements of animals and trained his fellow inmates in fitness and exercises. It is told that these inmates survived the great pandemic of 1918 due to their good physical shape.

After the war (WWI), he returned to Germany and collaborated with important experts in dance and physical exercise such as Rudolf Laban. In Hamburg, he also trained police officers. When he was pressured to train members of the German army, he left his native country, disappointed with its political and social conditions, and emigrated to the United States.

The year 1925 is the approximate time when Pilates migrated to the United States. On the ship to America, he met his future wife Clara. The couple founded a studio in NYC and directly taught and supervised their students well into the 1960s. His method, which he and Clara originally called “Contrology,” related to encouraging the use of the mind to control muscles. It focuses attention on core postural muscles that help keep the human body balanced and provide support for the spine. In particular, Pilates exercises teach awareness of breath and of alignment of the spine, and strengthen the deep torso and abdominal muscles.

Joseph and Clara Pilates soon established a devout following in the local dance and the performing-arts community of New York. Well-known dancers such as George Balanchine, who arrived in the United States in 1933, and Martha Graham, who had come to New York in 1923, became devotees and regularly sent their students to the Pilates for training and rehabilitation.

Joseph Pilates wrote several books, including Return to Life through Contrology and Your Health, and he was also a prolific inventor, with over 26 patents cited. Joe and Clara had a number of disciples who continued to teach variations of his method or, in some cases, focused exclusively on preserving the method, and the instructor-training techniques, they had learned during their studies with Joe and Clara.

Joseph Pilates died in 1967 at the age of 84 in New York.

source: www.wikipedia.com