The Benefits of Pilates
The Pilates Method is a results driven body, mind, spirit exercise program for clients looking to tone, streamline, and realign their body. The focus of The Pilates Method is core stability through conscious exercise that emphasizes strength, flexibility, balance, and improved body awareness. Pilates strengthens, tones and stretches muscles by using the body’s own resistance in a series of fluid, controlled, and coordinated movements that engage the body and the mind.
The Pilates Method was invented in the early 20th century by German athlete Joseph H. Pilates. The method consist of a series of over 500 exercises which are performed either with or without equipment. Joseph Pilates identified his work as Contrology: a ‘control’ that results in freedom, letting go of disempowering muscular and mental habits, patterns, and/or corresponding belief systems.
“By reawakening thousands and thousands of otherwise ordinarily dormant muscle cells, Contrology correspondingly reawakens thousands and thousands of dormant brain cells, thus activating new areas and stimulating further functioning of the mind. No wonder then that so many persons express such great surprise, following their initial experience with Contrology exercises, caused by their realization of the resulting sensation of ‘uplift’. For the first time in many years their minds have been truly awakened.” - Joseph Pilates
The Benefits of the Pilates Method:
- Build Core Body Strength
- Alleviate Pain & Tension
- Improve Stamina & Athletic Performance
- Increase Flexibility & Range of Motion
- Restore Natural Posture
- Lose Inches & Decrease Body Fat
Joseph Pilates formulated six basic principles for The Pilates Method:
- Breathing – connection to the pattern of movement
- Precision – quality over quantity
- Centering – initiating and controlling movement from the body’s core
- Flowing Movement – in combination with deep and relaxed breathing, to reduce stress on the body, as well as the risk of injury
- Control – rather than momentum
- Concentration – using the mind and body as a team
“The average person uses only 25% of the mechanical motions of the body, champions of sports 50%, acrobats 75%—but when a man or woman can use all the apparatus in this gym as easily as he can write his name, he uses 100%” ~ Joseph H. Pilates