6 Benefits of Pilates: Insights from Angela Clifford, L.AC
At the Center for Collaborative Health, we are committed to providing services that support the whole person establish a healthy, resilient, and balanced life based on their individualized goals. As part of our integrative approach, we are now offering Pilates! Pilates is a form of exercise developed in the early 20th century that emphasizes movements that engage both your body and mind. As a Pilates facilitator and acupuncturist, I would like to share some of the many physical and mental benefits of Pilates.
1. Increases flexibility along with strength: One of the reasons Pilates has stuck around beyond the old fad exercise, is because it builds long lean muscles, like those of a dancer or an acrobat. Strength and flexibility come hand and hand. “With length there is strength”, my teacher used to say. You can walk on a rope that is pulled taught, but not one that is slack. Pilates focuses on the fabric of our muscular system rather than the “single muscle” focus of weightlifting which focuses on shortening muscles individually. Pilates recognizes that if a body part is moving in one direction, there must be opposing forces from another body part that stabilizes the initial movement. These opposing forces are then working together to support the length while providing surprising strength.
2. Improves posture and joint alignment: Since Pilates focuses on length for strength it must recruit the smaller, deeper muscles, that are often closer to, or surrounding the spine and the joints. As these smaller muscles wake up, they balance out the bone structure which takes pressure off the joints, allowing them to decompress and reduce wear and tear.
3. Improves concentration and focus: I’m not going to lie, Pilates is not easy, but mostly because it demands the attention of the mind’s eye to focus on precise movement. With this practice, you will feel change in your body and see progress in your movement abilities. Without it, you will likely not see the results you are hoping for and will quickly tire of it. This is why Joseph Pilates includes Concentration as one of the primary principles of this discipline. If you can focus your mind on precision of movement, your health will greatly improve. This carries over to all aspects of health including mental health. By practicing Pilates, most notice a quieting of the busy mind, and an ability to concentrate throughout the day.
4. Promotes breath control and capacity: Joseph Pilates said, “Breathing is the first act of life, and the last… above all, learn how to breathe correctly.” He believed in squeezing “every atom of impure air from your lungs until they become a vacuum for new air.” Pilates exercises are taught with breath being used to engage muscles, stretch the space inside us, and challenge us with specific breathing rhythms. He refers to the breath as being able to unlock an “internal shower” that cleanses the organs and tissues.
5. Expands body awareness: With the combination of breath and concentration and the expansion and contraction within movement, we start to feel things about our bodies that we have never felt before. Our mind’s eye will travel to places inside us and will notice them, sense them, and begin to understand them.
6. Builds Confidence: As our body awareness grows, and our posture changes, and our pains dissipate due to balancing our bone structure, and our breathing regulates, we find ourselves walking through the world a little taller, and with more ease. As we accomplish movement, we never thought we’d be able to do, we begin to realize of other things that we probably could accomplish as well. Pilates give us a foundation of concentration, breathing, control, centering, rhythm, and flow that without even trying to, translate into daily life.
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