What can Pilates promise you?
Will Pilates get me in shape? Will Pilates get rid of my back pain? How much weight can I lose doing Pilates? Will Pilates make me have better posture? Will Pilates get rid of my cellulite? These are all questions I have been asked many times in my 30 years of teaching Pilates. Clients want to know what a Pilates workout will do exactly for them if they decide to come to take a Pilates session.
What can Pilates promise you? That question is as individualized as the work of Pilates itself. Every person who comes to do a Pilates workout will get what they are needing for their own body at that moment. What does that mean? Does that mean the back pain goes away and posture improves?
One thing I have learned over the years of teaching Pilates is this, I can NOT promise any of that for a client. All that may happen for a client but I do know for a fact there are a few things I can promise and one of them may cover all these aspects in one sentence.
Full body movement.
Pilates can promise you full body movement in your workout. What does that mean really?
Joseph Pilates created his work (originally called Contrology) to teach full body movement and to show people how to use his work to help them out in the outside world to move freely and to be able to do any activity they enjoyed for as long as they possibly could or wanted to.
Each exercise in the Pilates repertoire is about full body movement. There is no specific ab exercise, no leg day, no arm exercise it is all included. Every body part in every Pilates exercise needs to engage, participate and move! This is something
This means every time you do anything in the Pilates workout your mind is connecting to every muscle to get it to engage and work with the rest of the body as it all like an orchestra figures out the best way for this body to move.
Everything from the start with the Hundred to Leg springs on the Cadillac it is all full body. When you think about that and work in that mind set it is amazing what happens in your body!
Pilates by promising full body movement gives the body stimulation of full body, support for the full body and space for joints, organs and the spine. In giving that to the body during a workout that could potentially help with that back pain, hip pain by creating some space and mobility for those joints and that spine.
Giving full body movement during a Pilates workout also gives you individual movement potential meaning you are moving your body the way it was designed to move for your full range of movement, not what someone else can do or thinks you should do but, what you can do! What that potential is for you in movement.
All of this will help with posture as you are figuring out the shoulder mobility and range for you, getting that space for your spine to keep you from collapsing into the low back or upper back to start to go over with gravity.
Our bodies were each designed for us, we are all individuals so the way we move and our brain figures out the “talking” to those muscles and our structure is individual as well. Pilates can’t promise you to get rid of chronic pain or heal your injury but, by moving with that full body movement and learning how your body should move for your range and mobility is key to helping those issues.
As for getting rid of cellulite or losing weight? Pilates can not promise you that. Just like our bodies were designed to move in their own way cellulite and weight are more than just exercise of any sort. Genetics, diet are big factors so, as I say to anyone asking if Pilates helps them lose weight. Pilates is not a weight loss activity but, your body will change and get more mobile and stronger.
You will be able to do your activities with better ease and prevent more injury. Golf, tennis, running, hiking, biking, carrying your groceries, picking up your kids or grandkids, traveling for long periods of time, or sitting at your desk or computer. All this will be more doable in your life.
That Pilates can promise you!