The Pilates Method
Fitness is the First Requisite of Happiness
Pilates is currently one of the most popular fitness methods. Practiced on a consistent basis, Pilates provides a number of real benefits including increased lung capacity, improved muscle flexibility, tone, and strength, as well as enhanced physical balance and coordination. Many Hollywood celebrities and professional Broadway dancers attest to it's effectiveness and it's currently being used in many physical rehabilitation centers to help patients recover from physical injuries. However, Pilates is not a new system.
A Short History of Pilates
Joseph Pilates once said that "Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness," a statement very similar to one made by the Buddha over a thousand years earlier. Born a sickly child, Pilates became a life-long fitness enthusiast always looking for better and more effective ways to improve his physical health. He studied the training methods of Yoga, Zen, and Greco-Roman wrestling and combined various aspects of each into an exercise method he originally called "Contrology," because it gave you greater physical control by improving muscle tone, balance, and strength.
A German national living in England at the outbreak of World War I, Pilates was forced to sit out the war in an internment camp along with other German nationals. He used the time he spent in the camps to further develop and refine his exercise methods by teaching them to the other camp inmates and by using them to help rehabilitate some of the sick and injured in the camp.
In 1926, he immigrated to the US and opened a gymnasium in New York City in the same building that housed the New York City Ballet. Some of his first clients were professional dancers from the nearby dance studios who found Pilates' exercises well suited to building the balance, endurance, and muscle control required by modern dance as well as classical ballet. It wasn't long before most major ballet companies and professional dancers made Pilates exercise an integral part of their training routine.
Although Pilates was well known and respected within the dance community, his exercise method remained virtually unknown to the general public until the 1970's when Ron Fletcher, one of Joseph Pilates original students, opened an exercise studio in Los Angeles and began teaching the technique. Fletcher's studio attracted several well-known Hollywood celebrities who credited the "Pilates Method" with helping to create and maintain their million-dollar figures. The media, and the rest of the country, took notice and the Pilates boom was born.
What Pilates Is
But what exactly is the "Pilates Method" and how does it differ from other methods such as Yoga? The Pilates Method is a series of exercises that are designed to stretch, strengthen, and balance the body all at the same time. The exercises are low impact and keep a balanced and uniform load on all muscles and joints reducing the chance of injury. Rather than trying to isolate and strengthen individual muscle groups as in weight training, Pilates exercises involve as many muscle groups as possible seeking to keep the body fully engaged and integrated.
A typical Pilates routine involves a number of exercises performed on a padded mat. Although Joseph Pilates often used various specialized exercise machines and equipment, these are almost never found in suburban gyms and exercise studios having been replaced by modern substitutes such as resistance bands and exercise balls.
Pilates exercises are usually performed in a sequence that flows from a focus on body alignment, to proper breathing, to core conditioning, and finally, to stabilization and strengthening of support muscles.
Seen as a whole, the exercises follow the basic Pilates Principles of:
- Relaxation or the act of releasing stress and tension from the body.
- Concentration - gaining control of your body by concentrating on every physical movement.
- Alignment - keeping the skeletal system in perfect alignment which reduces muscle fatigue and stress.
- Breathing - the importance of breathing properly was discussed in the last section.
- Centering - creating and maintaining physical stability in your core.
- Co-ordination - restoring natural movement of the body.
- Flowing movements - developing body movements that are natural and flowing.
- Stamina - building muscle strength and endurance.
Although some references combine or rename some of these principles, it's clear that Joseph Pilates intended his fitness program to be a complete body and mind conditioning system.
But then, so is Yoga. So again, what's the difference? Although you get many of the same benefits from both Pilates and Yoga, there are some important differences in how these benefits are obtained.
First, Yoga seeks to primarily strengthen and balance the mind and spirit through a series of physical meditation poses. The stretching and physical endurance that it takes to maintain these poses helps to strengthen and balance the body in the process.
The Pilates Method, on the other hand, is primarily a physical regimen and it's main goal is to balance and strengthen the body through a series of physically demanding exercises. However, by concentrating intently on the movements in each exercise, the mind and spirit is also balanced and strengthened.
Although both methods are "body-mind-spirit" systems, Pilates is more "body - mind" while Yoga is more "mind - body." Since both methods take a different approach, they complement and support each other with the result that many people do Yoga and Pilates on alternate days.
Note however, that neither Yoga nor Pilates provides an adequate cardio workout, unless of course, you jog to your Pilates class!
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