The method
What is Pilates?
A method of exercise and physical movement designed to stretch, strengthen and balance the body. Combining specific exercises with focused breathing, it has proved itself not only as a fitness endeavour in its own right, but as an important adjunct to professional sports training and to physical rehabilitation of all kinds.
How it works
The benefits of Pilates depend solely on your performing the exercises exactly according to the instructions.
Joseph H. Pilates
The method is simple and logical. It works by strengthening the core postural muscles and developing body alignment. Because it is low impact, it avoids the muscle and ligament damage sometimes associated with other fitness regimes.
Imagine your body as a building. The foundations need to be correctly aligned and strong enough to support the rest of the structure. Once your posture is right and the deep internal muscles are working, the skeleton is supported, and the risk of injury and pain drops sharply. That is what people mean by core stability.
What it does, practised regularly
- Increased lung capacity and circulation, through deep breathing as a primary focus.
- Strength and flexibility, particularly through the abdomen and back.
- Coordination, both muscular and mental.
- Posture, balance and core strength.
- Bone density and joint health, and for many people a sense of body awareness they have never had before.
Who it suits
If you have a stiff spine at 30 you are old. If you have a supple spine at 60 you are young.
Joseph H. Pilates
The short answer is everyone, which is the sort of claim that usually means nothing. In this case it holds, because the load is adjustable. The same exercise on the same machine can be rehabilitation for one person and hard conditioning for the next.
- Anyone who wants to get fit, tone up, and deal with nagging lower or upper back pain.
- Athletes who want to prevent injury.
- Women who want to stay fit during pregnancy, and regain fitness afterwards.
- Anyone wanting to hold off osteoporosis rather than wait for it.
- Men, who are consistently the most surprised by what it does for them.
Why STOTT PILATES
STOTT PILATES® is a contemporary approach to the original method pioneered by Joseph Pilates. Its founders, along with a team of physiotherapists and sports medicine professionals, spent more than two decades refining both the exercises and the equipment.
What came out of that is the inclusion of modern principles of exercise science and spinal rehabilitation, which makes it one of the safest and most effective versions of the method available. It is the approach the studio has taught since it opened, and it is the reason so much of the work here comes by referral.