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Pilates is an exercise regime, a "workout," created by Joseph Pilates almost 100 years ago. He designed his fitness program
to improve posture and strengthen the core muscles of the body to maintain the improved alignment of the spine and joints.
It uses the body's own weight as resistance and encourages the muscles to work as they would in regular, everyday movement.
The Eight Principles of Pilates, when followed during each exercise, produce the maximum benefits:
1. Concentration
2. Breathing
3. Centering
4. Control
5. Precision
6. Flowing Movement
7. Isolation
8. Routine
Joseph Pilates, who always said he was 50 years ahead of his time, developed his fitness method at the turn of the
last century. He was a sickly child, suffering from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. Determined to be strong and healthy
he studied human anatomy and musculature and other forms of exercise like yoga and ballet to create a fitness program his
clients could do anywhere, anytime. This is what we call the Pilates Mat Routine.
During World War I, Pilates worked
as a nurse in an internment camp and, realizing the ill patients could not perform his mat routine, he used bed springs and
rails to develop equipment to support the weak as they exercised. The descendents of that equipment, the Reformer and Cadillac,
form the foundation for the collection of Pilates apparatus used with private clients.
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