Pilates Equipment Basics

So you want to get started on a Pilates program but don’t know what Pilates equipment you will need to get started. That’s great news and a decision you will not regret!

Pilates is growing in popularity because it produces results and has been doing so for decades. Now you can even set up a home workout studio that uses Pilates equipment similar to the original Joseph Pilates designed models. And we know what kind of results he described!

Joseph and his classic Pilates Method have such a legion of followers and part of that reason is because his Pilates equipment produced results. The good news is that the huge variety in sizes of Pilates equipment has made that equipment more affordable and more size appropriate to fit into our homes instead of just a gym somewhere.

Think back about when Joseph Pilates got started with his Pilates method. During World War I, Joseph was at an English internment camp and started to test his exercises on injured soldiers. Pilates started with those patients who were immobilized and bed-bound. To get them exercising, Joseph rigged up their hospital beds with springs, creating resistance to help them regain their strength. Brilliant! It was from this experience and experiment that Joseph went on to develop the Pilates Reformer.

Fascinated with spring-based pieces of equipment, Joseph headed to New York in the 1920s. He’d spent additional time creating more spring-based pieces of equipment as well as pieces that had lots of movable bars and adjustable straps.

Pilates Exercises

The Pilates system of exercising, body toning, muscle building and posture improvement has become one of the most flexible and widely used health and fitness routines available.

Since Joseph Pilates developed the system, specialist fitness centers, coaches and teachers have become available throughout the United States and the developed world.

The system caters for all adult age groups, whether it using workouts that promote muscle building for athletes, body toning exercises to enhance that glamorous look, or training schedules that can correct the bad posture that leads to spinal and other related problems.

Irrespective of age and physical disabilities the practice of the appropriate Pilates exercise schedule can be life enhancing to those that are prepared to take the trouble to explore the variety of benefits and routines that are offered by the system and then act upon the most suitable for their circumstances.

These can vary between as little as fifteen minutes a day, perhaps to alleviate a painful back condition to a full scale regime to improve and enhance a sporting aspiration.

Pilates is not only a physical improvement system but also has an important psychological input.

Joseph Pilates believed that an individual’s mental attitude to the fitness and development of the physical body was as important as the exercises and training to which it was subject. In other words having the right mental attitude to whatever you want to achieve with your body.

There are a number of inexpensive devices that will help with the Pilates experience but essentially the Pilates system is a ¨hands on¨ opportunity to improve those areas of the body that only you feel has the need to benefit.