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Equipment Pilates is getting a lot of air time at the moment. You may have noticed new Reformer studios popping up around St Helier, or the long lists of celebrities swearing by it for their pre-awards ceremony rituals, benefiting both their bodies and minds to deal with the pressures of A-List life.
So what’s all the fuss about and who is it really for?
The answer is simple, Pilates is for everybody.
You don’t need to be a Ballet dancer to practice it, be good at it, or thrive from it. It’s true dancers make beautiful shapes, but they also have some very bad habits that can restrict and hinder their movement due to muscle imbalances and overuse.
That’s why Pilates is so good for them, and the partnership the dancers of Ballet d’Jèrri are enjoying at the Healthhaus Movement Studio is in line with other top sports men and women around the world.
From surfing to golf, football to tennis, all sports, no matter the level or intensity, movements are repetitive. Think about that tennis serve, golf swing, or pop up on the surf board; to perfect these movements, you repeat incessantly until they’re second nature.
Pilates, alongside these patterns, will build strong but flexible muscles to withstand those repetitions, increasing elasticity in range of motion but also the core strength to properly support them. Basically, it is an essential enhancement to all Sports.
"Seriously, I'm now so stretched out and have such great posture that I look and feel like a different person... Pilates is going to add five, six, seven ... years to my career". - Rocco Mediate, Golfer
Pilates "helped my back a lot," and as a result, "the rest of my body feels much better". - Andy Murray, Tennis Champion
“Pilates felt like one of the best workouts I could lean on to keep that core strength.” - Carissa Moore, Surfer
Our bodies are all made similarly, it’s only the end goals that differ.
So if these athletes can benefit from the magic of Equipment Pilates, then so can you!
I have an injury though, is it worth the investment if I can’t train my whole body?
Absolutely! Another brilliant thing about Pilates is the way it can target and isolate specific muscle groups without forcing the whole body to join in. It’s a wonderful training method for post-surgery rehabilitation, or whilst recovering from an injury.
On a personal note, I only discovered the system of Equipment Pilates after a wrist fracture, despite doing and loving the mat work method for years. Standing at the Ballet barre just wasn’t an option, whilst lying on the ‘Cadillac’ was! I was both engaged and challenged without putting myself at risk of further injury. It also supported me before and after two pregnancies and is enormously beneficial to anyone seeking to strengthen their deep core muscles.
It seems like you have to be flexible and a woman to do Equipment Pilates?
False! All exercises in the Pilates system have the core or other target muscle group engagement as the main focus. Stretching comes as a secondary focus (or an added bonus) so, in short, you might not even realise you’re stretching!
Lastly, the man behind the method was Joseph Pilates, a German professional boxer and police trainer. It could be argued he was a pretty smart guy, so most certainly wouldn’t have limited his client potential by only aiming his workouts at women.
Pilates truly is for everybody.
By Alicia Beck
Coach and Tour Manager for Ballet d'Jèrri
