Pilates improves the neuromuscular, and musculoskeletal systems of the body through thoughtfully designed exercises that utilize spring resistance on apparatus, bodyweight on the mat, patterned breath-work, and requiring control of the whole body in each exercise. Working the body this way, holistically, instead of concentrating on isolating one muscle group or another, results in a uniformly built body that is flexible, strong, symmetrical, and lean.
Health Benefits of Pilates
Pilates Benefits Everyone via its Six Principles
When you take authentic Pilates with an instructor like Pilates Apostle, you’ll learn the core principles driving this discipline. These are the principles and the benefits you can expect:
Control – Controlled movement is the foundation of Pilates. It’s the most important aspect of the practice, and it’s why Joseph Pilates originally called this practice “Contrology”, or “The Art of Control”. During each exercise, you’re asked to control your entire body in terms of position, coordination of movement, timing, breath, and engagement. No part of the body is left out, even when there’s a primary goal to one exercise.
The amount of focus required to perform these exercises with such control is what makes this practice so mentally engaging, interesting, and fun. In Pilates, it’s not about going as far as you can, but rather how far you can go while not sacrificing the form, or the control over the movement. This leads to greater prowess, grace, and skill in day to day movements, and helps prevent injury from being “clumsy”, or having impaired balance.
Concentration – When asked to exert that amount of control in each exercise, it’s easy to see how this would improve concentration. This discipline and its exercises ask every part of your body to do something different, challenging, and with great precision, simultaneously. This is why it improves concentration, focus, and the mind-body connection.
Cross train and prevent injury
Boosts your body’s natural ability to burn fat
Help relieve tension in your body
Pilates Studio With Real Results
Centering – Your core, or “Powerhouse”, is where all the movements in Pilates emanate from. The engagement of the powerhouse (abs, lower back, glutes, and upper inner thighs) is the foundation of every exercise, and the energy from that engagement flows outward to the limbs. When movement starts from a strong core, a person will have more strength, stability, agility, balance, power, and grace while moving in the world; and they’ll be able to do more, more often, and with ease as they age.
Precision – Every exercise in the system has a goal. There is a specific form we seek in each movement to achieve that goal. Seeking the perfection of the exercise in a concentrated and precise manner, has a far greater positive impact on the neuromuscular system, than tens of haphazard, repetitive and unthoughtful movements. Seeking this level of whole-body precision in these exercises, increases proprioception (awareness of exactly where the body is in space, and in motion). It’s one of the primary reasons it’s so beneficial to every person, but especially for people who are healing from repetitive motion injury, for the elderly, and those looking to strengthen their techniques in their competitive sports.
Breath – Pilates emphasizes specific breath patterns, and also a type of breathing called “rib/ intercostal breathing”. Rib breathing asks you to pull in the abdominal wall while inhaling, creating a more vertical movement of the diaphragm, thereby sending more air into the lungs. It increases lung capacity, and improves lung function. In Pilates your breath is always coordinated with your movement. We inhale on the exertion to provide fresh oxygen to the blood when the action is most strenuous, and we exhale on the controlled release of the movement. Controlled breathing, not just in Pilates, but in many other practices, has been proven to help reduce stress and anxiety. In pilates, it also fuels your movements.
Flow – Every exercise is connected to the next one in the series through transitional movements. This creates a “flow” of movement and energy throughout a session. This creates an efficiency of movement that improves not only stamina and endurance, but also creates fluidity and graceful motion of the body both inside, and outside the studio.
Come start your journey in Scottsdale, AZ! Why choose Pilates Apostle? It’s where you can get the benefits of real Pilates, and experience its positive effects in all aspects of your life. Contact us today!
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