There are many thoughts good and bad on whether Pilates works:
It’s too easy
Too hard
Best thing ever
Fixed my back
Hurt my back
Too boring
Too much work
Great for strength training
Horrible for strength training
But really… aren’t these the excuses we give to ALL exercise? No matter what the type?
Ultimately, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. If you think Pilates won’t help you and you are unwilling to do the work correctly… Congrats! You’re correct!
It won’t.
If you believe it can make you feel better and you put the work in, then it WILL help you.
I was introduced to Pilates not knowing too much about it, except for trying videos that I thought were way too easy… because, it turns out, I was doing them wrong!
I walked in feeling good about myself; I worked outside and got lots of exercise and have always prided myself on being a strong individual. I went to a beautiful studio in my new home town, and I was excited and ready to prove my core strength!
Everything goes great at first. Eventually, we get to an exercise called a roll-up…no problem! I rolled up and rolled back down did it a bunch of times because you do everything as fast as you can right?
Noooope!
The instructor looked at me, and she didn’t even start with how quickly I was trying to do the exercise (that conversation came later). Instead, she asked if I noticed that I rolled up towards my left side before reaching for my toes. I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she showed me.
And it was true! I leaned my whooooooole upper body to my left side to start the roll up and evened out once I was almost up. Turns out, due to my mild scoliosis my body wanted to lean to the left and let that side of my body do all the work.
We ended up spending a bunch of time correcting my left side leaning and slowing this lady down to do the exercises right!
Doing this made the exercise so much harder to do… and I LOVED it.
I could feel my abs actually working very hard to get me from the ground to a seated position without any back pain or weird curves!
Pilates has given me a gift. It has taught me to move my body in a safe way allowing me to build the muscle I need to strengthen my body. I no longer have low back pain flare-ups that had been ongoing since I was a teenager.
It’s that I now know how STRONG it is possible for me to be! When we are moving with concentration, focus and purpose, we can ignite muscles in the way they were MEANT to be used.
And that, my friends, creates a stronger, healthier, HAPPIER body.
-Nadine