In response to RossMAN's "What is Pilates?" thread.
The exercises are, in a word, different. A great deal of emphasis is on "core" strength and tone....all other things working out from there. The various exercises you do wouldn't be all that hard in and of themselves (you're only using body weight and light resistance via springs) but become very challenging since you have to maintain the core tone and balance while doing them.
Not a ton of emphasis put on being flexible, but I can see where you'll gain flexibility over time doing this stuff.
An example of one of the exercises I did: "the elephant"
You're on knees on a reformer bench with your hands on the bar at the right end. The sled you're kneeling on slides to the left with springs providing resistance as you move. To do this exercise, you have to tuck in your "core" (the instructor will describe it as trying to pull your navel to your spine), arch your back and tuck your pelvis under. Once you've got that achieved, you use your abs/hip flexors to slide your knees backwards while keeping everything north of your hips completely still (the only two joints moving are hips and knees). It's quite challenging to do correctly since you're really isolating the lower body by doing the core "stabilization".
All the exercises are built on this same theme: stabilize the core and then move another part of the body through a relatively simple motion. Maintaining the composure of the core while doing so is what's so challenging.
I have another class Friday....I'll post more then. Feel free to bug me and I'll try to answer as best I can since I'm not sure if the above was really clear.
Cliff's Notes
-Took a Pilates class
-Liked it and would recommend it to the 0.00000000000000027456% of ATers who exercise or think about exercising.
The exercises are, in a word, different. A great deal of emphasis is on "core" strength and tone....all other things working out from there. The various exercises you do wouldn't be all that hard in and of themselves (you're only using body weight and light resistance via springs) but become very challenging since you have to maintain the core tone and balance while doing them.
Not a ton of emphasis put on being flexible, but I can see where you'll gain flexibility over time doing this stuff.
An example of one of the exercises I did: "the elephant"
You're on knees on a reformer bench with your hands on the bar at the right end. The sled you're kneeling on slides to the left with springs providing resistance as you move. To do this exercise, you have to tuck in your "core" (the instructor will describe it as trying to pull your navel to your spine), arch your back and tuck your pelvis under. Once you've got that achieved, you use your abs/hip flexors to slide your knees backwards while keeping everything north of your hips completely still (the only two joints moving are hips and knees). It's quite challenging to do correctly since you're really isolating the lower body by doing the core "stabilization".
All the exercises are built on this same theme: stabilize the core and then move another part of the body through a relatively simple motion. Maintaining the composure of the core while doing so is what's so challenging.
I have another class Friday....I'll post more then. Feel free to bug me and I'll try to answer as best I can since I'm not sure if the above was really clear.
Cliff's Notes
-Took a Pilates class
-Liked it and would recommend it to the 0.00000000000000027456% of ATers who exercise or think about exercising.
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