Just 30 minutes a day of Pilates exercises can improve your strength, flexibility, health and overall mood.
What is Pilates?
Pilates is an exercise method that was developed in the early 1900s by Joseph H. Pilates. The system strengthens muscles, increases flexibility and improves mental and physical well-being by using controlled movements to build core strength. Because it does this without adding muscle bulk, Pilates has been the exercise of choice for decades for dancers and gymnasts and seems to have taken over Hollywood. Although Pilates is now the workout of choice for many people, it was originally developed as a program to rehabilitate injured and bedridden soldiers during World War I.
Pilates is also one of the most highly adaptable forms of exercise you can do. Whether you are a senior who is just starting an exercise routine or an elite athlete, Pilates can be adapted to your needs. The exercises can even be adapted for a person with a disability. If you are moderately ambulatory, in a wheelchair or have almost no mobility, Pilates may be right for you.
Benefits of Pilates
There are obvious benefits to any form of exercise. Chief among them is improved general health. Some of the added benefits of adapted Pilates, as listed by the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability, include:
- Safe and effective exercises
- Increased flexibility with stability
- Improved postural alignment
- Increased abdominal activation and lower back strength
- Improves performance in sports
- Increased cervical and thoracic stability
- Increased motivation and self-confidence.
Adapted Pilates
Pilates is the perfect exercise program for people with disabilities. There are hundreds of exercises and each can be adapted for your individual needs. Pilates exercises involve control and precision, two areas that people with disabilities generally have trouble with and may be improved by Pilates, and breathing control.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to work one-on-one with a trainer in order to get the most benefit from Pilates and to learn the basic principles and movements. Not everyone has the means to work with a trainer, however. If you aren’t able to do this, check with your doctor to find out if you are healthy enough to start an exercise routine and then visit Adaptive Pilates to see a series of short videos that will show you a few Pilates exercises that have already been adapted for a person in a wheelchair.
Whether you are looking to try to lose weight or just tone up, increase your strength and lung capacity or simply feel better about yourself as a whole, there is a Pilates routine that will work for you.
Megan Abrams - I have lived with the effects of a childhood stroke for more than half my life and offer a uniquely personal perspective on disability.
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