If you’ve come from a background of doing traditional gym exercises, Pilates can take a little bit of time to get as you retrain your body to work in a different way.
Pilates is aimed at realigning the spine and strengthening the muscles that keep it properly aligned. Every exercise requires a balance of strength, flexibility, control and coordination, training your body in a way that helps you feel better during all your daily activities.
At the beginners level, the exercises will feel slow and quite gentle. Don’t be fooled, this doesn’t mean you aren’t working! Pilates requires you to retrain your body to engage the smaller muscles, unlike traditional fitness classes that focus on the bigger muscles.
You will begin learning about Pilates breathing and the basic principles of the Pilates method. This helps engage the deepest layer of core muscles, called the transverse abdominis, which wraps around your spine like a corset. Once you know how to switch on those muscles we add gentle exercises working the arms and legs with the core muscles activated. It’s recommended that you start with a beginners course so that you really understand this technique before moving on to more challenging classes.
One of the hardest parts of the class for many people is letting go of the desire to feel the ‘’burn’’ you feel in more traditional fitness classes. Let go of this, learn the basics and you will get so much more out of your classes as you progress.
Once you progress from the beginners level to intermediate classes you will start to find the exercises more demanding, but it’s important to slow down and learn the basics first so that you get the maximum benefit from your classes later on.
It takes time to learn the technique, but after a few classes you will start to feel this way of moving becomes more natural and you will eventually notice the difference in all of your physical activities.
We look forward to introducing you to the Pilates method at our beginners classes at The Pilates Lounge.
