Will Pilates Help You Feel Better?

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With so many types of exercise to choose from, why Pilates? What sets it apart from other forms of exercise? Will Pilates really help you feel better?

Pilates is unique as a blend of several forms of exercise. It is also characterized by the following:

• Increasing flexibility
• Mind-body exercise
• Can help strengthen the body against injury
• Can help with rehabilitation after injury
• Help to even out imbalances

How Pilates Helps Increase Flexibility

Pilates challenges your range of motion while keeping the muscles strong. While tight hamstrings are a common complaint, often other parts of the body are tight without us realizing it.

Consistently moving through the full, available range of motion, while at the same time stabilizing against various forces, helps increase flexibility in a safer way.

Mind-body exercise? Wait, Is it like Yoga?

Christians, especially, have very different opinions on whether Yoga is okay. While many practice it “without the spiritual part”, many others are not comfortable with it in any form.

This is one thing that sets Pilates apart.

You will often hear it combined with Yoga, “Yogalates”, but Pilates on its own, is void of the dark spiritual side that concerns many people.

Mind body exercise basically means that in order to do the exercise properly, you to focus entirely on what your body is doing. Your instructor will give cues like, “inhale as you lift up to extend your spine”, and while you are trying to do that, they add, “keep your abdominals strong and relax your shoulders.”

At which point you will realize that your shoulders were up by your ears as if you were trying to hands-free hold two phones at once.

When you are working to follow directions like this, you really can’t be thinking about what you are going to make for dinner. It’s lovely.

Strengthening Against Injury

When Joseph Pilates created his method, he had another name for it. He called it “Contrology”. It was the study of movement with control. This controlled movement is meant to be developed and practiced during the session, and then continued as you go about your day. It is meant to be a way of life.

With better posture and control of your motion, your body is better prepared to stabilize against everything from reaching a heavy dish out of the back of a high cabinet to picking up your child when they fall down.

Rehabilitation after Injury

Many Physical Therapists are using the Pilates method (especially with Pilates equipment) in their practice to help clients recover from injury.

Rehabilitation is not within the scope or practice of Pilates At Home. If you have an injury and want to find out about Pilates as a possible part of your recovery, we recommend that you check with your doctor. If your doctor thinks it would be appropriate for your specific injury, then ask about a referral for a physical therapist who uses the method.

Even Out Imbalances

If you have been a mom for a couple of years or more, you have imbalances. Do you carry your child on one hip? It doesn’t work on the other side, does it? Take a look in the mirror. Does one shoulder seem slightly higher than the other? These are imbalances.

For me, the one “better” hip, and the high shoulder are related. And they can definitely cause some pain.

Other things cause imbalances too. You have a dominant hand, which means the muscles in that hand, arm, and shoulder are stronger than the other. If you play sports like tennis or golf, etc., these cause imbalances as well.

Pilates focuses on working the body evenly, so that the weaker side gets stronger, and the stronger – often also tighter – side balances out. So, will Pilates help you feel better? Yes!

And, for the record, if there is one other thing that really sets Pilates apart, it is that you can do it barefoot. And as I always say, life is better in bare feet.

For happy bodies,

Melanie

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