Pilates

Pilates exercise helps to improve balance, coordination, flexibility, posture, quality of movement and strength. Its benefits range from rehabilitation and resumption of normal activities, prevention of accidents, maintenance of health and fitness to the attainment of high performance skills.

In Pilates exercise, key postural muscles are activated to help stabilise the spine, contributing to “core stability”. This ensures a solid structural foundation of support for the body. By mobilising and strengthening from within, we improve alignment and correct muscle imbalances. Having released and lengthened tight muscles and strengthened weak ones, muscle tone is improved evenly and sound movement patterns can be achieved. Attention is given to alignment, breathing and centering. Pilates movements are precise, controlled, coordinated and fluid, while the mind is engaged with focus and concentration.

Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in 1880. Having suffered as a child from respiratory ailments, he studied various methods of exercise in order to overcome his disabilities, becoming in the process a skilled gymnast and sportsman. Elements from yoga, gymnastics, self-defence, acrobatics and weight training influenced the method he developed. While interned in Britain during World War 1, he helped many people to whom he taught his exercises, including the bed-ridden and disabled. He immigrated to the USA in the early 1920s, setting up a studio in New York where he taught until his death in 1967.

The Pilates Method of Exercise covers work on specialised apparatus (usually with one-to-one supervision) and matwork. Pilates matwork can be taught individually and in groups, with certain exercises performed using small pieces of auxiliary equipment such as balls, weights, resistance bands and others. Class levels range from remedial to advanced.