Pilates is a system of movement developed by Joseph H. Pilates in the early 1900’s consisting of a series of approximately 500 precisely designed movements performed on a mat or specially designed equipment. It is a balanced blend of strength and flexibility training that improves posture, reduces stress and creates long, lean muscles without bulking up. Pilates is functional, working several muscle groups simultaneously through smooth, continuous motion, with a particular concentration on strengthening and stabilizing the core (the abdomen, back and pelvic girdle region, sometimes referred to as the “powerhouse”).

Some of the many benefits include but are not limited to the following:

• Improved posture
• Longer, leaner more flexible muscles while building strength
• Heightened body awareness and a greater sense of well-being
• Increased core strength and stability
• Improved balance and co-ordination
• Creation of an evenly conditioned body-preventing injury
• Reduces stress and produces clarity of thought
• Increases lung capacity and circulation
• Strengthening of the back by building support and strength in the abdominals
• Increased range of motion
• Correct over-training of muscle groups which can lead to stress and injury
• Compliment sports training and develop functional fitness for daily life activity

Joe went to England in 1912, where he worked as a self-defense instructor for detectives at Scotland Yard. At the outbreak of World War I, Joe was interned as an “enemy alien” with other German nationals. During his internment, Joe refined his ideas and trained other internees in his system of exercise. He rigged springs to hospital beds, enabling bedridden patients to exercise against resistance, an innovation that led to his later equipment designs. An influenza epidemic struck England in 1918, killing thousands of people, but not a single one of Joe’s trainees died. This, he claimed, testified to the effectiveness of his system.

In 1926, Joe immigrated to the United States. During the voyage he met Clara, whom he later married. Joe and Clara opened a fitness studio in New York, sharing an address with the New York City Ballet.

By the early 1960s, Joe and Clara could count among their clients many New York dancers. George Balanchine studied “at Joe’s,” as he called it, and also invited Pilates to instruct his young ballerinas at the New York City Ballet.

“Pilates” was becoming popular outside of New York as well. As the New York Herald Tribune noted in 1964, “in dance classes around the United States, hundreds of young students limber up daily with an exercise they know as a pilates, without knowing that the word has a capital P, and was a living person.

Joe continued to train clients at his studio until his death in 1967, at the age of 87. In the 1970s, Hollywood celebrities discovered Pilates via Ron Fletcher’s studio in Beverly Hills.

Where the stars go, the media follows. In the late 1980s, the media began to cover Pilates extensively. The public took note, and the Pilates business boomed. “I’m fifty years ahead of my time,” Joe once claimed. He was right. No longer considered the workout of the elite, Pilates has entered the fitness mainstream. Today, over 10 million Americans practice Pilates, and the numbers continue to grow.

There are nine key principles that are applied to each movement pattern in order to achieve the full benefit of the Pilates Method.

1. Breathing – the breath is the essential link between the mind and the body. It draws our wandering mind back into our bodies and back to the task at hand.

2. Concentration – to concentrate is to pay attention to what you are presently doing. Without concentration the exercises lose their form and their purpose.

3. Control – to be in control is to understand and maintain the proper form, alignment and effort during an entire movement.

4. Centering – in Pilates all movement radiates outward from the center. Developing a strong, stable and flexible center is one of the defining features of this form of exercise.

5. Precision – understanding proper form, placement and movement efficiency. Precision is the end product of concentration, control, centering and practice.

6. Balanced Muscle Development – understanding, developing and maintaining correct alignment and form is essential to Pilates.

7. Rhythm/Flow – rhythm and flow creates smooth, graceful and functional movements without placing stress on the joints.

8. Whole Body Movement – Pilates is fundamentally about integrating movement into a flowing whole body experience; integrating the mind with the body to create clarity and purpose; integrating mind, body and spirit to create a life of balance.

9. Relaxation – to be healthy in body and mind it is important to release unnecessary tension in order to understand the balance between effort and relaxation.

• Mind: When Joseph wrote his ground-breaking book Return to Life through Contrology his first piece of text stated “Physical fitness is the first requisite to happiness. Our interpretation of physical fitness is the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and pleasure.” When we are feeling good mentally we ultimate look and move better too.
• Body: The Pilates repertoire coupled with its key principles allows for instructional sessions to be designed to address specific needs creating balance in the body. As Joseph stated in his writings, “Contrology (Pilates) is designed to give you suppleness, natural grace and skill that will be unmistakably reflected in the way you walk, the way you play and the way you work.”
• Spirit: When the mind is engaged and focused and the body strong, flexible and coordinated the spirit is naturally elevated. The studio offers a quiet and tranquil atmosphere to support this mind, body, spirit experience with Pilates.

Joseph Pilates developed his method from numerous modalities, including Yoga. While Yoga is mostly performed on mats, our disicipline incorporates and utilizes large pieces of equipment or apparatuses designed to facilitate development of pure movement by creating low impact resistance. Though both Pilates and Yoga offer slower moving exercise modalities, the Pilates apparatuses tend to create longer, leaner muscles, and positive results are witness sooner in regards to muscle toning.