Exercise is good for flexibility and muscle strength but does not lose weight or hypertrophy
What is Pilates?
First called "Contrology," Pilates is a type of physical activity that seeks to control the body's muscles, strengthen the muscles, improve their tone, and give the body greater flexibility. Today, some doctors consider it a form of therapy for being an individualized exercise.
The technique is closer to a strength exercise and is known for improving body contouring, bringing more strength, adjusting posture, and improving the muscles in the center of the body, called the core.
Pilates is a modality capable of offering many benefits to the practitioner, promoting greater body awareness and increasing flexibility. Also, its practice can help increase pleasure during sexual intercourse.
Does Pilates Lose
Weight?
Pilates can improve body contouring by toning the muscles and helping in the exchange of fat for lean mass. However, there is not enough calorie-burning during Pilates' practice to make a difference in weight loss and the scale. The ideal, for this purpose, is to combine it with aerobic activities, such as running, swimming, or some sport.
Benefits of
Pilates
Pilates is a
method that stimulates the body globally during each exercise, aiming to
increase mobility, flexibility, strength, and muscle tone. With this, it brings
some benefits such as:
- Improved posture
- More pleasure during sexual intercourse
- Increased muscle tone
- Greater joint mobility
- Development of walking and running
- Relief from tension
- Focus on breathing
- Increased flexibility
He mainly uses breathing and movements that use the body weight or the help/resistance of his equipment's springs.
1. Posture Improvement
The body awareness obtained with Pilates and the focus on the muscles in the center of the body (known as the core) causes the spine's natural curves to be respected, which improves posture. As a result, exercise can reduce back pain.
2. More Pleasure
During Sexual Intercourse
Pilates works a lot on the pelvic floor musculature, having as indirect benefit the possibility of having more pleasure during sex, mainly in women's cases.
3. Increased Muscle
Tone
Pilates exercises work with muscle contraction and strength, in addition to flexibility. The muscle fibers are ruptured and rebuilt, allowing the exchange of fat mass for muscle mass and a better body contour, reducing measures.
4. Greater Joint
Mobility
As the exercises work the body globally, the joints are also stimulated, making the body more mobile and making day-to-day movements easier.
5. Development of
Walking and Running
As global movements are stimulated during Pilates, everyday activities, such as walking, become more straightforward and better executed.
6. Relief from
Tensions
By focusing on breathing and concentration when performing a movement, Pilates can help reduce stress. This benefit is increased by the exercise's environment: usually quiet rooms with pleasant and calm ambient sound.
7. Focus on
Breathing
In Pilates, proper breathing is indicated to facilitate the movements' execution, bringing more awareness about how we also breathe in our daily lives, reducing fatigue.
Furthermore, through the breathing re-education and the concentration acquired in the method, running can become a more pleasurable activity and faster results. Besides, the body awareness developed in Pilates helps the runner balance and align the body.
8. Increased Flexibility
The exercises designed for this benefit are those that emphasize the body's global stretching. By working the extension of muscles and joints, we notice positive changes in activities such as tying shoes and putting on pants, for example.
Pilates Exercises
Types of
Pilates
Today there are two types of Pilates, floor Pilates and Pilates with equipment. Both follow the same principles and repertoire, but with some differences in the way they are performed:
Pilates with
Apparatus
It uses the equipment developed by Joseph Pilates based on springs. It can facilitate movements for people with physical limitations or make activities more difficult, taking them to more advanced levels.
Solo Pilates
It is considered to be more difficult because it is done with the body's weight only, requiring much more control of the student's movements and muscles. This technique has the advantage of being able to be practiced anywhere, including studios, interspersed with the use of equipment.
Appliances and Accessories
Cadillac
One of the most famous Pilates machines, the Cadillac, was inspired by hospital beds adapted by Pilates during his imprisonment. Besides the stable base that resembles a mattress, it has bars and straps adjusted to different heights and places to attach springs. This allows both aerial exercises (some upside down) and activities that exercise the upper and lower limbs and the core.
Ladder Barrel
Its structure resembles a barrel, with a ladder attached. In it, you can work stretching and strengthening exercises for the trunk, upper or global members. Because it is rounded, it also helps with balance by providing an unstable base.
Step Chair
Inspired by chairs, it enables a series of different exercises, working legs, arms, and even the trunk in some abdominal exercises.
Swiss Ball
Although it is often associated with Pilates, its incorporation into the method occurred about 20 years ago. Because it is an unstable base, it is often used in balance exercises, but it can also be used as a weight in some apparatus exercises.
Reformer
Very similar to a bed, the reformer has a sliding platform called a "cart" connected to springs, which regulate the difficulty of the exercise. It is also used to work various parts of the body, such as the arms, torso, and legs.
Elastic Band
In solo Pilates, these bands act like springs: providing resistance to the lower and upper limbs' movements.
Magic Circle
This accessory was created by Joseph Pilates himself and can be used as a facilitator for some types of exercises (such as push-ups) and another way to provide resistance to the arms and legs.
Bosu
The bosu is another device that did not come from Pilates but was incorporated to help mainly balance. It is a half ball and can be used with either a straight surface on the floor or facing upwards.
Toning Balls
These balls
have weight loads, bringing resistance and increasing the strength to perform
some movements.
Foam Roller
Foam rollers are essential for working on posture, stretching, and balance exercises.
Contraindications
Since Pilates classes are usually individualized, although they can be done with other students, there are only relative contraindications to Pilates.
For example, pregnant women who did not exercise before pregnancy should be more careful when starting Pilates during pregnancy.
Does Pilates Help
Hypertrophy?
Hypertrophy is much better achieved in weight training: the activity that stresses the muscles to become more voluminous.
In Pilates, the muscles are worked in another way, which improves their tone and strength, but does not cause an increase in their volume.
Pilates Indications
Pilates can be practiced by anyone who wants to try this type of physical activity. So much so that it is widely indicated for people with joint problems, injuries after physical activity, and other health problems.
However, what changes are that people who have this type of injury will do different activities tailored to their problem style.
Can Pregnant
Women Do Pilates?
Pregnant women usually have several pain types due to their bodies' changes, especially with the difference in the center of gravity. Pilates can be beneficial in this regard, helping them to readapt to their new forms. Also, Pilates equipment can protect pregnant women from injury.
Can the Elderly
Do Pilates?
Pilates is very interesting for working on mobility and balance in the elderly, helping them have fewer falls (so familiar with age), and making their daily lives more productive.
Combine Pilates with...
Aerobic Exercises
Pilates doesn't work the aerobic part of the exercises, so combining it with activities like running, swimming, or sports allows calorie burning to be combined with muscle strengthening, bringing better results to the process of weight loss or localized fat loss.
Another
advantage is that Pilates allows the muscles to perform aerobic exercises
better, reducing the risk of injuries.
CrossFit
Those who practice CrossFit can benefit from Pilates because they work different types of muscles: while the former uses more superficial and explosion muscles, the latter works deeper muscles, which reduces the risk of injury.
Healthy habits
A healthy diet, reducing alcohol intake, and quitting smoking can help improve physical conditioning and make it easier to lose weight.
Pilates History
The method was created by the German Joseph Pilates, who studied anatomy, biology, physiology, and traditional Chinese medicine from an early age. But he only started to develop his method during the First World War, when he lived in England and was arrested for being German.
He insisted that the prisoners in his pavilion, including the sick, exercise regularly with him in jail. He took springs from the mattresses for the bedridden and attached them to the beds, creating the first pilates apparatus.
Later, in 1929, he moved to the United States and founded his first Pilates studio in New York.
Required Sessions
Once a week is enough to reap the benefits of Pilates. But with regularity of twice a week or more, it is possible to see an evolution in a faster way.
Each Pilates class lasts between 50 and 60 minutes. There are longer classes, such as Power Pilates (which takes an hour and 30 minutes) or Fast Pilates (which takes only 30 minutes).
Pilates: Price of
The Session
The price of a
Pilates session can change considerably depending on the region. Usually,
packages are offered with classes up to three times a week for around $300.