Pilates is a whole-body workout that focuses on moving from the centre, building core stability and abdominal muscles, and improving overall muscle tone and flexibility. Pilates builds muscle strength without adding bulk, giving you a longer, leaner and younger look.

In our everyday life, we tend to carry out movements in a habitual way. Whether we walk up the stairs, tie our shoe laces, or get out of bed, we do not think about our movements unless our body signals discomfort or pain. Pilates can help us to become aware of our movements again, helping us to overcome the discomfort or pain that stem from bad postural or movement habits. Each movement in Pilates is carried out with precision and control from the centre of the body, the area where we experience most aches and pains due to bad postural or movement habits. In Pilates muscles are ‘retrained’ and nervous connections ‘reawakened’.

Pilates can also:

• Increase flexibility and joint mobility
• Improve breathing and circulation
• De-stress and help relaxation

As we get older, our spine and joints become less flexible. In our spine, discs degenerate and in some cases vertebrae fuse. Muscles become tense and we experience pain. Pilates can help to keep the spine subtle and elongated and our joints flexible.

Breath is a core principle in Pilates. Pilates focuses on the breath to guide movements and flow and makes us more aware of our breathing patterns. Learning to use the breath with awareness can help to relieve anxiety and stress and also helps to increase our lung capacity. Our lungs can once again learn to expand. Breathing also helps our venous blood to return to the heart and thereby improves our circulation.

Breathing is also one of nature’s way to help us relax. When we become anxious and stressed our breathing tends to become shallow. Abdominal breathing relaxes our mind and our digestive system – a system that is often very badly affected by stress. Although in Pilates classes, we mainly tend to use lateral breathing, that is breathing into the sides of the ribcage, this still opens the lower lungs. Flexing and extending the spine during our Pilates practice awakens our spinal nerves and releases tension, increasing our general feeling of wellbeing.