Everyone has heard of it, and gorgeous friends and countless celebrities are doing it – but just what is the hype about Pilates?!
Pilates is quite simply a form of low-impact, full body exercise, that strengthens, improves flexibility and challenges the body in ways which you just don’t get in your day-to-day life! Pilates has been revolutionised over the past twenty years, from its founders Joseph Pilates original 34 mat-based exercises. There are now countless variations on these exercises with a variety of small equipment available, to add even more diversity. Physiotherapists have adapted Pilates exercises and regularly incorporate them into rehab regimes, due to the fantastic benefits they can give.
Reasons to take up Pilates:
- Increase and maintain whole body muscle strengthOnce upon a time, Pilates was all about two words. The. Core. Nowadays, we identify our ‘core’ as a group of trunk muscles including our abdominal, gluteal, pelvic and back muscles. A good Pilates class won’t just work your ‘core’ for an hour – you should leave feeling like you’ve worked your whole body. All exercises have variations and different levels to them, enabling you to vary resistance and difficulty of the movements. Muscle strength is essential at all ages in order to condition our bones, joints and muscles to tolerate the physical demands of daily life. Strength training has a role for everyone – particularly those that are hypermobile, ageing (all of us!) or pregnant / postpartum
- Optimise flexibility and mobilityBeing flexible doesn’t mean contorting yourself in half. Flexibility needs to be specific. For example golfers and those playing racket sports will benefit from optimising their upper back and shoulder mobility in order to generate more power. Someone else may benefit from increasing their hamstring mobility in order to offload their lower back pain and enable them to pick things up off the floor. The regular, gentle, repetitive movements in Pilates will encourage improved range of movement of your joints and muscles, which will in turn help with flexibility. You should leave a Pilates class feeling like your movement is much freer!
- Improve balance and coordinationLots of movements in Pilates will challenge your balance: for example standing exercises on the mat or using small equipment which increases the sense of wobble! Many will also test your co-ordination: for example an exercise involving both an upper and lower body exercise. Some may incorporate the two together! – a physical and mental workout!
- Injury preventionMany people come to Pilates for general wellbeing and day to day injury prevention. Many also come to supplement their current exercise regimes and keep themselves fit for their respective sports; we see countless runners, cyclists and swimmers. Whatever your sport, there’s a role for Pilates in your conditioning. Injury prevention is far superior to injury management!
- Low impact, controlled exerciseAttention to movement control is paramount throughout the class. This is ideal for those looking to isolate specific muscles / movements and also for those less confident with self directed or busy class exercise environments. Due to the low impact nature of Pilates, it is ideal for those initially returning to exercise following eg. surgery, pregnancy, chemo / radiotherapy and injury.
Pilates exercises may look simple from the outside – but believe me, when you start doing Pilates with the right technique, engaging the right muscles, in the right order (oh yes and if you can breathe at the same time!), it is by no means an ‘easy’ form of exercise just for ‘yummy mummies’! Every body, male or female, whatever age, can feel the incredible benefits from Pilates.
At Empower Physiotherapy & Pilates, our Pilates classes are bespoke and tailored to the needs of the individuals, whether they are small (up to 3 people) classes or our larger (up 12 people) classes. So you can be sure you are gaining the maximum from your Pilates workout – it’s worth the hype!
