What Is Pilates Exercise?

Pilates, briefly put, is all the rage now. Celebrities, including Madonna, are praising it to heavens and everyone's eager to learn about it. So what is it really?

First of all, pronunciation. It is pronounced "Puh Lah Teez", kinda like a Chinese name but it's actually the name of a boxer: Joseph Pilates.

Pilates exercise, in essence, is a set of about 500-600 movement sets that are performed slowly and with great concentration. The main point I like about pilates is, there are very few repetitions (compare that with the 'one.. huhh..two..huhh... three.. huhh...' of standard aerobics and you'll know what I mean)

But there's more to Pilates exercise than the movements. It's something quasi-spiritual. The spiritual aspect comes from the mind-body connection involved in the training. The main aim is to be able to move with grace, with economy of movement and economy of energy without even thinking about it. So to be a successful pilates exercise practicer, you should be working to comply with the Pilates exercise strategies even when you're not training: Control your breathing, control the precision of your movements [Just perfect for the clumsy type like me :)] and try to move fluidly and continuously -as opposed to breaking, short movements.

Pilates puts great importance to the abdominal section ("stomach"). Actually pilates is not the only practice which puts a lot of importance to the abdomen: almost all oriental cultures from shintoism to Chinese Qi, think of the abdomen as the "power center of the body", where the energy of the soul (Chi, Ki, Qi, whatever) is generated. Pilates also acknowledges this section as the "powerhouse" of the body.

Now about the exercises.. First of all, you need to be patient. Not because you need to do it for a long time after starting but for the initial "start", you will need some time to learn the exercises, learn to interpret and perform them correctly. So a one on one instruction seems like the best option at this point. A standard Pilates session is about 45-60 minutes long but this depends on what *you* need and how much you need that.

Pilates can be performed with our without equipment but from my personal experience, I know that pilates, done with the right pilates equipment (not the ripoffs) is much more effective than the non-equipment pilates.

I will cover some pilates equipments in my later articles.

To give you just a basic idea about the equipment, I'll talk about some:

Pilates Universal Reformer:

This one's like a bed with a carriage. It has lots of springs, cables, pulleys, bars.. that allow you to work every part of your body.

Pilates Trapeze Tables & Towers:
These are basically spring assisted tables & towers designed for various purposes in pilates exercises.

Pilates Chairs:
The chairs are generally springed or strapped pieces of equipment on which you can work all of your muscles.

Pilates Barrels/Balls:
The barrels and balls are mainly used to amplify the resistance on your back and abdomen in pilates exercise.

Sean de Sacque is a personal training and pilates exercise expert living in Canada. He is famous for his great trainer-trainee relationships and is teaching in a gym with his wife Rose. For their blog about pilates, you can check out [http://pilates.rebitran.com]

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