Pilates

What is Pilates?

Pilates is a mental and physical body-conditioning programme that uses exercise and concentration to develop body awareness, improving and changing the body’s postural alignment habits. The Pilates fundamentals: alignment, breathing and core stability (the ABC’s), provide the framework on which the method is based.

Learning how to align your body in its correct position before working through a range of low impact exercises, plus using breath to facilitate activation of your core stabilising muscles in the lower abdomen and back, mean you’ll feel toned and stretched in all areas of the body. This results in increased strength and flexibility in all muscles and joints allowing ease of movement. Your balance and stamina will improve and if wanting to rehabilitate, you will work to try and restore full mobility.

By taking the principles of Pilates into everyday life, you can start to become more aware of your ideal posture and learn how to move safely whether you’re gardening, weightlifting or just standing in the queue at the supermarket!

Pilates is easy to get started in and depending on your goals, can be as gentle or challenging as you’d like it to be. It’s suitable for all ages and abilities and with different levels of classes, there’s something to suit everyone’s needs.

Joseph Pilates said, "In 10 sessions you'll feel the difference, in 20 sessions you'll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you'll have a whole new body". Of course, results will vary by person, but rest assured the more regularly you practice Pilates, the faster you’ll feel the benefits and see the difference. Read more about the History of Pilates here

Benefits of Pilates

Your body is the most wonderfully engineered piece of machinery in the world. Its functionality is key to you living the best life you can. Just like a car, if you treat it well, service it regularly and put the correct fuel in it, it will reward you with years of good service and take you anywhere you wish!

However, many factors: sedentary lifestyles, poor training techniques, hereditary or genetic conditions, illnesses, stress, workplace, driving, gardening, mobile phones and even gravity, mean that the wonderful piece of equipment that is our body, starts to fall into misalignment.

We develop bad postural habits that result in our ligaments and muscles succumbing to sprains and strains. We slouch, sit with crossed legs and lift things that are way too heavy, or we compensate for pain in other areas by changing the way we hold our bodies.

Pilates will teach you the ideal posture, where the forces of gravity are distributed evenly throughout the body. This means muscles are at their correct length, joints are aligned correctly, ligaments are less likely to be sprained and muscles less likely to strain. The body becomes balanced and therefore much less likely prone to injury and pain.

Pilates is not just a workout, it’s recommended by many healthcare professionals for its rehabilitative and preventative properties and is wonderful not only for sculpting your body but also for clearing your mind giving you energy and inner serenity. It can be beneficial for back pain, osteoporosis, sports injuries, osteoarthritis, scoliosis, hyper-mobility, shoulder/neck problems and knee injuries, to name just a few things!

It can also help you become more effective in your chosen sporting activity including golf, horse riding, running or cycling.

If you want to see more scientifically proven reasons why you should try Pilates.
Read more here, Scientifically Proven Benefits of Pilates for your peace of mind