What is Pilates? A Guide to the Benefits of At-Home Pilates Workouts for 50+
For anyone new to Pilates, the exercise system might look somewhat like yoga. Both exercise disciplines are performed on non-slip mats and often focus on strengthening your core and improving your breathing, so they pair well if you want to add both to your exercise regimen. However, there is a lot more to both types of exercise that might encourage you to tackle both at some point.
Today, we want to focus on Pilates, which is a fascinating form of exercise with a long history and many passionate practitioners today from all walks of life.
What Is Pilates?
Pilates is a full system of low-impact exercises performed in multiple repetitions, focusing on promoting complete strength, stability, and flexibility. The primary muscle groups targeted are all those associated with your core, also known as prime movers, including:
Abdominal muscles
Lower and upper back muscles
Inner thigh muscles
Hip muscles
Gluteal muscles
Another goal and philosophy of this exercise technique is to cultivate awareness of your body, allowing you to tap into its natural movements. It helps you use your body more efficiently, effectively, and gracefully, which feels more foreign to many of us as we get older.
You might use a yoga mat or any foundational mat that prevents your feet from slipping and provides some cushioning for floor-based exercises. There are also special pieces of equipment called reformers that offer additional support and are often available in Pilates-focused gyms or therapeutic centers.
However, these machines aren't required to get a good workout unless you fall in love with the discipline and have the budget for one. You can get a great workout with the right information, a mat, and the determination to do something great for your body.
A Brief History of Pilates
In the 1926, Joseph and Clara Pilates developed this exercise regimen and opened a gym in New York City that they named "Body Conditioning Gym." But that isn't where it all began.
Joseph Pilates was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1883 and reportedly suffered from rheumatic fever, rickets, and asthma as a young, frail child. None of those conditions stopped him from embracing life as he got older, eventually becoming a diver, skier, and gymnast.
In the 1910s, living in England, Pilates put his determination and varied physical abilities to use, working as a professional boxer, self-defense instructor, and circus performer. During World War I, interned with fellow German nationals, he began developing his own brand of physical fitness techniques and teaching them to those interned with him. Later in the war, he worked with patients unable to walk, creating the earliest model of his reformer, also known as the "Cadillac," attaching bed springs to the hospital beds.
Over the decades, reformers have become modified and adapted, but reformers are still popular and growing in popularity to this day in studios around the world.
According to the Pilates Foundation, Joseph Pilates once shared the reason he developed this method and his machines:
"I invented all these machines... it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it."
You might have heard that Pilates is specially suited to dancers' bodies. Dancer Shari Berkowitz can attest to its amazing therapeutic properties. She shared her story in a New York Times article entitled Is Pilates as Good as Everyone Says?
After an injury during a dance performance, Berkowitz was told that her body was a great risk and that any wrong movements could lead to instant and permanent paralysis. With three herniated discs in her neck and one boring into her spinal column, she had no choice but to believe them and proceed to take a cautious schedule of physical therapy.
But then she discovered Pilates, and everything changed. While grateful to her doctors and physical therapists for getting her through the initial recovery process, she shared that her Pilates exercises took her healing to the next level, giving her strength and confidence in her ability to move. Most of all, she finally felt that she could move freely again. She became such a proponent of the system that she became an instructor and studio owner.
Imagine what Pilates can do for any of us if it can allow someone on the brink of paralysis to come back stronger than ever.
Yoga vs Pilates
We touched on the common comparison between yoga and Pilates in the introduction, but we believe it needs a deeper discussion since both types of exercise offer unique outcomes and benefits. It isn't difficult to understand why these two exercise disciplines come up together and sometimes against each other.
The main difference between the two exercises focuses on the following:
In yoga, you typically move into a position and hold it, or you flow directly into another position. Sometimes, you perform a full series of poses, or asanas, holding and flowing throughout.
In Pilates, you get into a specific position, then perform core-focused repetitions, moving your arms and legs while stabilizing your core.
But make no mistake, both approaches to fitness boost your strength and flexibility and are well worth your time and commitment if you can fit them into your schedule.
Standing Pilates Exercises
Many of us avoid floor-based exercises. If you want to keep your feet on the floor, take heart that you'll find plenty of standing core exercises and routines that are as effective as floor workouts that build core strength and body confidence. In addition, you'll give your legs a strength workout and do more work for balance improvement.
Standing workouts are great for anyone, but if you are new to the practice, or you want to switch things up, it's a great way to ease into it or keep things new and fun.
The Top Pilates Benefits
As we get older, our doctors often remind us to eat a nutritious diet and get plenty of moderate cardiovascular exercise and some strength training. But maybe you want an alternative exercise to traditional Nautilus equipment or free weights in the fitness center gym.
Pilates might be the alternative you have in mind. However, you might wonder what types of benefits it provides.
Here are a few we think you will appreciate to keep your core and other muscle groups strong, fit, and toned:
Boosts core strength. Many people call the core "the powerhouse" since that is the point from which most of our most important movements stem, especially when we need to make quick and powerful movements. Our core needs to remain strong and agile for optimal support and stabilization.
Reduces chronic problems and recurring pain. Pilates is widely known for reducing pelvic floor dysfunction and back and hip pain.
Improves muscular endurance. Athletes like long distance runners need a strong core that will support them for several miles of running per session. While you might not be training for a marathon—or you might, and good for you if you are!—you can still benefit from having plenty of muscular endurance for activities like walks, bicycle rides, swimming, and gardening.
Enhances flexibility and mobility. The slow, precise, and controlled movements provide a stretch all throughout your workout that enhances mobility and flexibility in older adults. As a bonus, it is better than specific stretching before or after exercise since it is incorporated into the movements while your muscles are warm and active.
Promotes body awareness. Since Pilates is a mind-body practice that allows you to focus in the moment to pay attention to each sensation, it enhances body awareness. You gain awareness of crucial feelings—pain, comfort, discomfort, your emotions, and your environment—that might warn you of a problem or let you know all is well.
Decreases stress. We always need to remain mindful of stress and how to decrease it in our lives for better health, especially as we get older. Touching on body awareness again, our increased ability to look inward and control our breath through our practice will help us down-regulate the nervous system, thus lowering cortisol and decreasing stress.
Improves cognitive function. As older adults, we might find ourselves worrying about our cognitive function now and in the future. Fortunately, Pilates can help us in these areas too, by increasing blood flow to the brain and increasing neurotransmitters and longevity neurons that support memory, executive thinking, and learning.
The benefits go on and on, thankfully, including having the power to boost your mood, strengthen your bones, improve energy levels, support immunity, lose weight and get fit, and help relieve tension in your body.
Pilates for Weight Loss
We touched on Pilates for weight loss in the previous section, but we believe it warrants its own spot. Like any exercise program, Pilates workouts alone won't spur weight loss, especially for those of us over 50 with slower metabolisms and other frustrating factors.
Besides, it doesn't burn as many calories as cardiovascular exercises like swimming, cycling, or running for anyone at any age, but if you pair Pilates with a nutritious and calorically appropriate diet, you are likely to lose weight and gain all the other benefits listed above.
Who Benefits Most from Starting a Pilates Program?
While anyone can achieve benefits from starting a Pilates program, whether at your local gym or in your home, it is especially helpful for people with injuries and aging adults.
The reason Pilates is so beneficial to older adults is similar to the reason it is a great form of therapy for those suffering from injuries. It improves control and stability needed for functional movement, balance, and good posture.
Think about how important this is for us edging toward our senior years with our aging bodies. The older we become, the more prone we are to losing some balance and coordination.
By incorporating Pilates and other core strength practices into our exercise regimen, we can help improve our balance and reduce our risk of falls and injuries.
Additionally, it's ideal as a rehab strategy for knee and hip replacement surgery.
Are You Ready to Start Your Pilates Program?
At Mighty Health, we encourage you to start exercise programs that appeal to you and give you plenty of benefits. Pilates does all that, but we understand you might want further advice and instruction on this type of workout. We have a team of exercise experts who will work with you to develop the right exercise program that keeps you safe and helps you improve your fitness.
Let us know how we can help!
