I’ve heard about Pilates…
Is Clas­si­cal Pilates for Me?

Clas­si­cal Pilates is ben­e­fi­cial for men and women: young or old, ath­letic, seden­tary, or in phys­i­cal therapy. It is a sys­tem of body con­di­tion­ing that is both gen­tle and ath­letic, known for its “feel good” and body trans­form­ing results.

Peo­ple who con­sis­tently use the Clas­si­cal Pilates Method report ben­e­fits such as:

  • Improved pos­ture
  • Strength­ened and toned mus­cles with­out added bulk
  • Increased flex­i­bil­ity and mus­cle control
  • Improved align­ment, coor­di­na­tion, and balance
  • Increased lung capacity
  • Uni­formly devel­oped muscles
  • Improved range of motion
  • Improved body awareness
  • A more bal­anced body pre­vent­ing mus­cle and soft tis­sue injury

In addi­tion, they find they sleep bet­ter, have increased energy, stress release, and reduced fatigue and/or chronic pain.

Who Ben­e­fits from Pilates?

Clas­si­cal Pilates is ben­e­fi­cial for men and women: young or old, ath­letic, seden­tary, or in phys­i­cal therapy.

Ath­letes, of all lev­els, cross-train with Pilates.
Check out the Arti­cle “Can Pilates Give you the Edge?”. Golfers, run­ners, skaters, ten­nis play­ers, dance com­pa­nies, sports teams (foot­ball, base­ball, etc.), eques­trian, and fit­ness enthu­si­asts are uti­liz­ing Pilates to fine-tune and reha­bil­i­tate their bodies.

Pilates and Yoga share sim­i­lar goals, with both meth­ods believ­ing in indi­vid­ual progress in a non-competitive arena, with empha­sis on stretch­ing as well as strength­en­ing of mus­cles. How­ever, Pilates works the body as an inte­grated whole, coor­di­nat­ing the upper and lower mus­cu­la­ture with the body’s cen­ter. This dra­mat­i­cally improves strength, flex­i­bil­ity, pos­ture and coordination.

Tech­nol­ogy Pro­fes­sion­als, Com­puter Users, and Peo­ple who Drive a lot ben­e­fit from Pilates to stretch and strengthen neck and shoul­ders, improv­ing pos­ture and body aware­ness and alle­vi­at­ing and pre­vent­ing neck and shoul­der strain.

Clas­si­cal Pilates teaches body aware­ness, devel­op­ing a new level of mind and body connection. Injuries often occur where the body com­pen­sates for devel­op­men­tal imbal­ances or trauma. Clas­si­cal Pilates is a won­der­ful tool for address­ing these prob­lems. With a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the injury or mis­align­ment, the client can heal faster and is less prone to re-injury. Focus on the “POWERHOUSE” (mus­cles groups of the abdomen, lower back and but­tocks) helps ath­letes and peo­ple with phys­i­cally demand­ing jobs pre­vent or reduce injury.

Redis­cov­ered by Phys­i­cal ther­a­pists, sports injury experts, chi­ro­prac­tors and ortho­pe­dists, Pilates can be suc­cess­fully inte­grated into reha­bil­i­ta­tive exer­cise and phys­i­cal ther­apy pro­grams designed to speed the recov­ery of soft tis­sue injuries.

Enthu­si­asts report relief from back, neck, and arthri­tis pain. Recently, Pilates has been intro­duced as a part of mus­cu­lar ther­apy for mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis sufferers.

Pilates can be safely prac­ticed by Preg­nant women help­ing them learn proper breath­ing and body align­ment, improve con­cen­tra­tion, and recover body shape and tone after childbirth. If you are already preg­nant and have never done Pilates or have not done it recently, we rec­om­mend you wait to start your Pilates pro­gram until after the birth of your child. Additionally, some of the exer­cises are par­tic­u­larly ben­e­fi­cial to women in gen­eral because they strengthen the mus­cles of the abdomen and pelvic floor, impor­tant for main­tain­ing con­ti­nence. See the arti­cle in Har­vard Women’s Health Watch, Feb­ru­ary 2000.

Feel too old to exer­cise? Pilates has been safely prac­ticed by men and women in their 70’s and 80’s for almost 90 years.

Celebri­ties and ath­letes who are devo­tees of the Pilates Method include: Can­dice Bergen, Jodie Fos­ter, Katharine Hep­burn, Madonna, Bill Mur­ray, Mar­tina Navratilova, Shalom Har­low, Uma Thur­man, Tommy Tune, Sigour­ney Weaver, Danny Glover, Kristi Yam­aguchi, Kim Cat­trall, Jas­mond Sky, Jes­sica Lange, James Tay­lor, Robert Downey Jr, and Patrick Swayse, to name a few.
Call us to set up your intro­duc­tory pri­vate ses­sion at (425) 558‑5566.

What do I do if I want to learn Clas­si­cal Pilates Mat Exer­cises but don’t want to do Pri­vate Sessions?

For those new to Pilates and inter­ested in learn­ing the Mat exer­cises in a class­room set­ting, we offer our Pilates Mat Work­shop, “Intro­duc­tion to Pilates Mat Exer­cises.”

The Clas­si­cal Pilates Mat exer­cises are appro­pri­ate for men and women of all ages, body types, and fit­ness lev­els. How­ever, not every body can do every Pilates mat exer­cise to it’s fullest, espe­cially when first learn­ing Pilates. Modifications of the exer­cises are often nec­es­sary to allow the stu­dent of Pilates to grad­u­ally increase their strength and flex­i­bil­ity thereby reduc­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of unnec­es­sary strain to the body. Learning Clas­si­cal Pilates is a grad­ual process that over time and prac­tice will go very deep into both body and mind. This is why we most strongly rec­om­mend pri­vate ses­sions to beginners. However, if you are unable to do pri­vate ses­sions, we offer you this won­der­ful alternative…

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