Monday, September 11, 2000
Pilates works the whole body
Conditioning, flexibility regime gaining converts
By Christine Oliva :
The Cincinnati Enquirer :
It may look like a medieval torture device, but the Pilates Reformer is far from menacing. In fact, the spring-loaded resistance machine might be one of the most gentle ways to tone muscle, strengthen joints and realign the body.
Pilates (pronounced Puh-LAH-tees) is a method of total-body conditioning that increases flexibility and strength without building bulk, explains Tara Stepenberg, a movement specialist with Essence in Movement in Blue Ash. Instead of emphasizing repetition, Pilates focuses on a series of precise, controlled movements.
The basic tools of the system, brought to the United States in the 1920s by creator Joseph H. Pilates, use springs and pulleys to vary resistence. The most common, called a Reformer, consists of stirrups for either hands or feet and a bed-like platform that slides along a track. The Cadillac, or trapeze table, is surrounded by a metal frame and includes a push-through bar, a trapeze bar and leg straps. “The apparatus really helps the body learn how to move efficiently,” Ms. Stepenberg says.
|
KEYS TO PILATES-BASED TECHNIQUE
|
• Concentration: You have to think about what you are doing. You're working your whole body in every single exercise.
Centering: Focus your energy on the physiological center of your body — your abdominals. It's your power source, the place where you need to be connected.
Precision: Focus on doing the work correctly — quality over quantity. You are never doing it to do X number of repetitions.
Flow: Eventually you go through your mat and apparatus work with a sense of flow and connection.
Breathing: The breath is not extraneous; it supports the movement. It also helps you connect deeper in the abdominals.
Control: Whether it's on the mat or the apparatus, there is always some part of your body that serves as the stabilization point. At some point in your body, you are stable, so that another part can be mobile and the rest will be relaxed and alive.
Source: Essence in Movement in Blue Ash
|
And although it looks “barbaric,” the Reformer has been used to condition and rehabilitate dancers for more than 70 years, says Jacqui Haas, a licensed athletic trainer with Spectrum Rehabilitation Services of Christ Hospital in Mount Auburn.
In 1988, Mrs. Haas, a retired Cincinnati Ballet dancer, was one of the first in Cincinnati to receive training in Pilates-based movement. Since then it has leaped out of dance circles into the mainstream, with routines for both rehabilitation and conditioning. Athletes, actors, housewives, grandparents — even pregnant women — are all benefiting from the technique.
Sandy Corrado, 51, of Montgomery, started taking Pilates-based classes in February. Although she began recreationally, she soon discovered the exercises were relieving pain in an injured knee. Six months later, she says she's better than ever.
“I'm so impressed I can hardly stand it,” Mrs. Corrado says. “I feel real centered, real balanced. I even carry myself differently. It feels so good.”
When Marjolein Brugman, president of MBS Fitness in Cambridge, Mass., was hit by a car six years ago, her doctor recommended Pilates to help rehabilitate her shattered hip. Within a month she was feeling results.
“It was fabulous,” she says. “I thought, God, everyone should do this . . . And anybody can — young and old, men and women. You modify it a bit for each person, but everyone can do it.”
So Ms. Brugman, now 46, decided to make Pilates a little more accessible to the average person. In 1995 she introduced the Performer, a home version of the Reformer.
Unlike traditional weight training, which is linear in nature, Pilates is more functional, explains Dana Pilolli, co-owner of Light Touch Physical Therapy & Bodywork Center in Blue Ash.
For example, a bicep curl uses an up-and-down motion to strengthen only your bicep. But Pilates-based movement puts you in several positions to work the same muscle in a more natural pattern. The result: a longer, leaner look.
“Pilates is not about power,” says Mr. Pilolli, 39. “It's about strength, flexibility.”
That's part of the reason why such a wide range of people are catching on.
Ms. Brugman, who recently had a baby, continued her Pilates-based regimen through most of her pregnancy. Three weeks after giving birth, she weighed only two pounds more than her pre-pregnancy weight.
“Pilates works,” she says. “It really works. This is not just a fad, it's a way of life.”
Through Pilates-based techniques, physical therapy patients can benefit as much as top-notch athletes.
“Specificity of training is the thing in the exercise world today,” Mr. Pilolli says. And although cross-training holds some benefits, runners must run and swimmers must swim. “We can mimic those same moves.”
The apparatus may appear intimidating, but it's a fear worth conquering, Mr. Pilolli says, because “it takes us out of our normal plane of existence.”
'Dr. Laura' TV show sparks protest
'Dr. Laura' makes Channel 9 debut
Undecided voters hold the key to presidency
SAMPLES: Man finds roadwork fascinating
KIESEWETTER: Couric living for 'Today'
'West Wing' scores 9 Emmys
List of Emmy winners
TV appearance stirs political row
Welfare protesters stage rally
City not helping Burnet, critics say
GET TO IT
Jazz legend lights up Music Hall
Pig Parade: Pig in a Poke
10 CSO concerts not to be missed
Boy, 12, facing sex trial
FIT BITS
For every excuse, there's a solution
Fueling a downtown revival
Little big man hangs tough
Little campus in Lebanon
Local Digest
Long-dead soldiers get respect
New presidents take over Indiana colleges
No arrests in 2 fatal shootings
Pilates works the whole body
Rover Rehab turns strays into pets
Sharonville throws a party
Teen-ager died driving too fast
Try swimming, cycling after hip replacement surgery
You asked for it
