Joseph Pilates Research Paper

Pilates is a method to condition the body using exercises that strengthen and stretch muscles. Since its creation ninety years ago, people widely practice it all over the world, making it a favored class in gyms and health clubs. Pilates exercises draw from traditional yoga techniques along with strength-building principles used in the traditional gym setting. It works the body as one unit instead of working individual parts separately. The Pilates Method provides a wide variety of benefits by connecting the mind and the body using a combination of mat exercises with workouts using special apparatuses.

Pilates involves movements that continually stretch the muscles, making them leaner and longer (King 10). Joseph Pilates created these movements

Due to his poor physical health, he dedicated himself to becoming as fit as possible. By mastering bodybuilding, gymnastics, boxing, and diving, Joseph Pilates created a novel approach to fitness that changed the way people viewed exercise (King 16). As an intern in World War I during the flu epidemic in 1918, Joseph Pilates taught his fellow internees his technique of using the mind to control the muscles, therefore successfully keeping up their health. Near the end of World War I, Joseph Pilates worked as an orderly in a hospital and handled patients that were unable to walk. He helped these non-ambulatory patients improve their health by attaching springs to the hospital beds to support their limbs. The exercises with the springs later became the basis for the machines that Joseph Pilates would build to go along with the mat exercises (Siler 2). With the exercises that Pilates created to keep up the injured fitness levels while held in confinement, he created the fitness program that later became known as “Pilates” (Robinson and Thomson

The Pilates Method became famous around the dance community and almost every dancer in the city used this method to train (King 16). By the 1960s, Joseph Pilates had the top dancers in the city as his clients including George Balanchine, who became the “co-founder of the New York City Ballet” (18). Recently, models, actors, and even athletes who owe their “lithe bodies” to the method use the Pilates techniques (Siler 3).

The eight principles of Pilates are breathing, concentration, control, centering, flowing movements, postural alignment, relaxation, and stamina (Robinson and Thomson 16-22). These eight principles are the basis for the Pilates Method and bring together the different elements of the exercise styles that Pilates derives from (Siler 15).

An important aspect of Pilates is breathing where one should take full inhalations and exhalations to expel stale air and intake fresh air (16). The Valsalva method of breathing is when weightlifters hold their breath while lifting weights. This type of method increases blood pressure and expends energy in unused parts of the body. In contrast, breathing continuously and as frequently as one would normally when not exercising is more beneficial than using the Valsalva method in Pilates. For Pilates, one should use thoracic breathing as opposed to abdominal breathing by squeezing the stomach and breathing into