Why Pilates Central?
Pilates is a uniquely precise and intelligent approach to exercise and body-conditioning, which gives you a leaner, suppler, more toned body and a calmer, more relaxed mind.
It takes its name from Joseph Pilates, a German-born emigré to Britain and then America, who devised it in the early part of the last century.
Long popular among dancers, gymnasts and others who knew of it, Pilates has now been discovered by a wider public – from those who want a stronger back or flatter stomach to those with specific injuries or medical problems that Pilates can help; or else, simply those who want to get fit or de-stress.
Pilates is a gentle, non-aerobic exercise method, which lengthens and strengthens the muscles, and improves posture, without stressing the joints or the heart. Indeed, physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors and doctors now recommend Pilates as one of the safest forms of exercise available.
You can learn Pilates either in group sessions, known as mat classes, or in a dedicated studio – like Pilates Central – with expert teachers and specialised, spring-resistance equipment, designed to tone and strengthen your muscles, while placing minimum strain on the joints.
Wherever you learn Pilates, you should make sure that your teacher is properly qualified, since Pilates taught by someone without the right training can do you more harm than good. Yet, many exercise teachers in gyms and elsewhere now include Pilates exercises in their classes, despite themselves never having had any training at all. Our instructors, meanwhile, have had the best training in the business.
Pilates is more dynamic than yoga but less aggressive, sweaty and high-impact than aerobics, jogging or gym-work, which, unlike Pilates, can all place damaging strain on the joints and/or heart.
Whereas most forms of exercise build the body’s stronger muscles, Pilates exercises work as much or more to strengthen the weaker ones too. The result is a properly balanced body, with better joint mobility, a firm musculature and good, natural posture.
Pilates helps you achieve such posture by strengthening the centre of the body so that it supports your lower back, helping you to stand straight and hold your upper body correctly.
Whereas many kinds of exercise aim only to raise your general fitness, our instructors are able to isolate and strengthen a specific muscle or tackle a particular problem with a rare precision.
Whereas other forms of exercise often cause injuries, our Pilates exercises not only cure injuries but are themselves so controlled and low-impact that they are extremely safe – if taught, that is, by a properly trained instructor. What’s more, the awareness of your body that they develop enables you to avoid the same injuries or problems recurring in the future.
Whereas other forms of exercise promise ‘no gain without pain’, Pilates is a gentle, non-aerobic exercise method, which produces a healthy, toned, mobile body and calm, relaxed mind – and so proves the existence of gain without pain.
Pilates is still popular with dancers, gymnasts and athletes but it is equally suitable for most men and women, from nine to 90, and beyond. In fact, some people are surprised that almost a third of our clients are male.
Pilates is particularly suitable for…
And for those who suffer…
Pilates takes its name from Joseph Pilates, the German-born emigré to Britain and then America, who devised it as a new approach to exercise and body-conditioning in the early decades of the last century.
Joseph Pilates was born near Dusseldorf in 1880. He was a sickly child who determined to make himself strong and healthy. He took up body-building, to the point where by his teens he was getting work as a model for anatomical drawings.
He was perhaps the first influential figure to combine Western and Eastern ideas about health and physical fitness.
He researched and practised every kind of exercise he could, ranging from classical Roman and Greek exercise regimes to body-building and gymnastics, alongside the the Eastern disciplines of yoga, tai chi, martial arts and Zen meditation.
He studied anatomy and animal movements. He sampled every kind of exercise that he could and carefully recorded the results.
In 1912, aged 32, he left Germany for this country, where he became a professional boxer, an expert skier and diver, taught self-defence to Scotland Yard detectives and found work as a circus acrobat.
On the outbreak of World War I, the British interned him as a German enemy alien. He used his time as an internee to start developing a new approach to exercise and body-conditioning – the start of what is known today as Pilates.
During his internment, he also got the chance to work as a nurse. This, in turn, gave him the chance to experiment by attaching springs to hospital beds, so that patients could start toning their muscles even while they were still bed-bound. Such were the origins of the first Pilates machines, which were shaped like a sliding bed and used springs as resistance.
Returning to Germany after World War I, Pilates worked with pioneers of movement technique such as Rudolph Laban, who created the basic system of dance notation still used today.
In 1923, Pilates moved to America, where he opened his first studio in New York, along with Clara, his wife and assistant, whom he had met on the Atlantic crossing.
His new method was an instant hit, particularly among dancers such as Martha Graham and George Balanchine. Other dancers, who found the Pilates method the best way both to recover from injuries and to prevent their recurrence, also became devotees. Gradually, a wider audience got to hear of it.
Pilates called his technique ‘Controlology’ – only later did it become known by his own surname. He conceived it as a mental as well as a physical conditioning in which individuals could work their bodies to their full potential.
In explaining Controlology’s guiding principle, he liked to quote Schiller: ‘lt is the mind itself which builds the body’.
The Pilates method did not return to Britain until 1970, when it was brought back to this country by Alan Herdman, after the latter had been asked by the London School of Contemporary Dance to visit New York and investigate the methods of Joseph Pilates. Herdman established Britain’s first Pilates studio at The Place in London that year.
‘Joseph Pilates, Exercise Pioneer’, an exhibition of photographs by I.C. Rapoport, is currently receiving its world premiere at Pilates Central.
The best way to start is by giving us a call and coming to see the studio in action.
If you like what you see and want to take things further, we will ask you to complete a form that asks you a series of questions about your medical history, current health, fitness and objectives.
One of our instructors will then assess your posture, alongside the information in your form and devise a unique programme to meet your precise needs.
He or she will then show you how to get started and teach you the basics.
You will find that the exercises are simple, even minimal.
Our instructors will continue to work with you as you progress and start to reap the benefits.
They will also continue to develop and adapt your Pilates routine as your body gradually improves and your needs evolve.
Any comfortable, loose clothing, such as a T-shirt with leggings or tracksuit bottoms, or else shorts of a respectable length; but no singlets please.
Please do not wear shoes, since they are not allowed on the machines but do wear socks, clean if possible.
Please see our Prices and Times page for more information.
60 or 90 minutes depending on your choice. 90 mins gives you a chance to do more exercises and can be very helpful when looking to rehab from a particular issue. The 60 min session are easier to fit into a busy diary and offer a more dynamic regime.
Pilates Central offers equipment-based Pilates rather than mat or group classes. So, we assess you as an individual and then design a bespoke programme to meet your precise needs.
You then follow your own programme under the supervision of our teachers. Beginners get almost individual attention from teachers.
Up to two clients start their session at any one time but each follows his/her own bespoke programme. The studio typically contains between four to five people exercising at any one time.
People do Pilates anywhere from once a week to once a day – but twice a week is common and what we suggest for most clients.
Even if you just take just one session a week, you should try to do at least a few minutes of Pilates – whether at home or work – on a daily basis.
‘In ten sessions’, suggested Joseph Pilates himself, ‘you will feel the difference; in 20 you will see the difference; and in 30 you will have a whole new body’.
Most people do start to feel a difference after 10 sessions, getting the sense, for example, that they are walking taller and moving in a looser, suppler way.
The longer they persist, the more they will tend to see and feel the shape of their body slowly change.
Please see our Prices and Times page for more information.
Please see our Location page for more information on how to find us.
Pilates is still popular with dancers, gymnasts, athletes and others in their physical prime but it is equally suitable for almost any age.
Indeed, one of the beauties of Pilates is that we tailor it to suit each person, whatever their age or physical condition.
Many of our clients are middle-aged or elderly. Indeed, more than a few start doing Pilates specifically because they have reached ‘a certain age’, realised that they no longer take any exercise and suddenly thought, ‘My goodness, I have to start to do something, or else I’ll fall apart’.
Older clients still might have to ask medical advice before taking up Pilates and to start more slowly. Many people, however, do Pilates into their eighties and nineties. A properly tailored Pilates programme is one of the best-known ways to ward off the infirmities of old age. Joan Bakewell, the writer and broadcaster, swears by Pilates for this reason, among others.
Your true age, in the end, of course, is as much a function of how feel as of the date on your birth certificate. As Joseph Pilates himself put it: ‘If, at the age of 30, you are stiff and out of shape, you are old. If, at 60, you are supple and strong, then you are young.’
Far from it. Pilates, after all, was invented by a man, Joseph Pilates, originally for his own benefit – and was only later adapted for women.
Men, what’s more, tend to be less flexible than women, and so to need Pilates even more.
In fact, almost a third of our clients are male, as are countless celebrity devotees of Pilates, from Hugh Grant, Ian McKellen, David Beckham and an ever-growing number of famous footballers, rugby players, cricketers and other professional athletes.
No, you should also take some form of aerobic exercise, such as walking, running, cycling, tennis or swimming – but preferably done in a way that does not place damaging strain on your body.
In fact, we have an exercise bike in the studio, specifically for the benefit of clients who want to follow their Pilates session with some form of aerobic exercise.
One way to get some idea is to observe whether your teacher places emphasis on such crucial factors as positioning, concentration and breathing.
An even better way is to ask what training they have done. Our instructors have done a long and rigorous training, which is more like an old-fashioned apprenticeship.
Wherever you learn Pilates, you should make sure that your teacher is properly qualified, since Pilates taught by someone without the right training can do you more harm than good. Yet, many exercise teachers in gyms and elsewhere now include Pilates exercises in their classes, despite themselves never having had any training at all.
The difference between Pilates and Yoga, reckons one Californian fitness instructor, is as follows: ‘One is eyes closed and think of God; and one is eyes open, think of your butt’.
Yes, there are similarities between Pilates and Yoga, partly because Joseph Pilates consciously drew on both Eastern and Western traditions when first developing his method.
However, there are also key differences. Pilates, for example, is more dynamic than Yoga, which places more emphasis on the static holding of certain poses.
Pilates also focuses more on strengthening the deepest layers of abdominal muscles, which form a corset around your torso.
If you have the time, there is no reason why you should not do both and get different benefits from each.
This may seem a strange question to ask about an exercise method that was invented almost a century ago and has had a devoted following for many long decades.
But the answer is simple: no. And so is the reason: Because it works.
Joseph Pilates always said that his method was 50 years ahead of his time The current growth in popularity of Pilates is simply the fulfillment of his longstanding prediction.
You should check with your doctor before doing any kind of exercise during pregnancy. However, Pilates tends to be particularly suitable for pregnant women, since it is a low-impact form of exercise that strengthens the back, stomach and pelvic floor muscles.
In fact, many women first discover Pilates and become clients here either when they are pregnant or have just given birth.
We don’t offer separate classes for either pregnant women or new mothers but what we do instead is something much better and more customised, which is to design a tailored Pilates programme to meet the precise, individual needs of each woman. We then help her follow and adapt it at each new stage.
You may need to do Pilates in a modified or gentler way while pregnant, and to make sure you stop the moment that you feel any discomfort.
A properly tailored Pilates programme, however, can be the ideal way to lessen or avoid the back-pain commonly experienced during late pregnancy and then to enable your body to regain its shape rapidly after birth.
One of the key advantages of Pilates is that it offers relief from lower back pain. Lower back pain is an extremely common health problem that is difficult to solve. Pilates offers a solution via lower back pain exercises.
Back problems are only made worse by our tendency towards sedentary and desk-based lifestyles. Unsurprisingly, back problems are the single most common reason that our clients give for attending Pilates Central.
The Advantages of Pilates for Addressing Back Pain Issues
Pilates can both alleviate existing back problems and prevent future ones by straightening the spine and improving posture. It does so both by strengthening core muscles and by improving awareness of how the way that we move can stress the spine. In addition, good posture is both crucial to the health of your back and central to Pilates. The combination of core strength, flexibility and balance, which Pilates promotes, leads to good posture.
Learn to stand straight and you will breathe better and digest your food more efficiently. You will also walk taller, feel slimmer and look longer, leaner and younger. Place your bones correctly and you’ll get the right muscles working, supporting your joints rather than stressing them. Stand properly and you will also maintain the natural balance and correct length of your muscles.
Poor posture, on the other hand, can cause many problems – ranging from lower back pain to the sort of rounded shoulders and stooped appearance which can come with age – of the kind that end up being treated by physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors.
Joseph Pilates discovered that if he hollowed his navel back towards his spine, his back felt protected. He was using the deep postural muscles to stabilize the spine and achieve what physiotherapists now call ‘core stability’. This strong centre forms the basis of the Pilates technique, providing the support that your body needs to function properly and freely.
If in doubt, it’s always best to check with your doctor before embarking on any fitness programme, but remember what Joseph Pilates told his clients: ‘You are as old as your spine’. Keep yours healthy by building strength from the inside out.
To find out more about how Pilates could help alleviate lower back pain through specialist lower back pain exercises, give us a call.