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Get the best from you exercise!

Here are some ideas to help you get the best results from your Pilates workouts and to keep them balanced, effective and interesting: 

Be real and think positive
At the beginning, you may dream of achieving a body like Pilates practitioner Madonna, but you’ve got to start from where you are. Positive thinking is important, and it’s helpful to have a vision to aim for. Really be honest with yourself about your body’s strengths, weaknesses and needs

Have patience
Results in Pilates come from working consistently. You need to be patient and regular in your practice of Pilates to achieve your goals, and sometimes the exercises you find most difficult may be the best medicine for you, so persevere!

Don’t push your body too hard
‘No pain no gain’ is certainly not the Pilates way, and if you are finding an exercise painful you should stop. Some discomfort is likely to be a part of working your body in new ways, but listen to your body carefully, and with discipline and attention to detail you will gain!

Make time
Take some time out for your Pilates practice on a regular basis. Turn off your mobile, take the phone off the hook, and try to take some quiet time for yourself regularly. It could help you to feel more relaxed and spacious in the rest of your day.

Make some physical space to practice at home
If you have to shift stuff in a cluttered environment every time you want to practice Pilates, this will take precious minutes out from your practice time, may make you feel anxious about your clutter, and will probably sometimes put you off practicing at all! Pilates includes developing a more spacious state of mind. Try to create a place in your home where there is a clear, open space readily available for you to stretch and move.

Create a programme that suits you
It’s helpful to have a routine, a) because it’s easier to remember, b) because you can feel and measure your progress in it, and c) because as you progress you can add to it and adapt it as you learn more. 

Vary your routines
Include a variety of the videos each week to make sure that you exercise your whole body. Exercise the upper body one day and the lower body the next. Make time for some of the whole body workouts and stretching to balance everything out.

Don’t rush: take time out and feel what it’s like to slow down
Pilates is a slow, flowing exercise: speeding it up will not make it better, in fact, taking more time over an exercise will probably make it feel a bit more challenging and increase its level of difficulty and effectiveness. Listen to your body’s own rhythm and work with your breath.


Pilates Principles

These eight principles are the foundation of the Pilates approach to exercise. These principles are important to understanding and performing Pilates properly.

Relaxation: Starting off in a relaxed state allows the other principles to be achieved easily. Tension can change the way the muscles work with one another. With relaxed muscles we can achieve maximum results with minimum effort.

Alignment: Strengthening effectively relies on proper alignment. Proper alignment can decrease pain, improve breathing, prolong health and give the appearance of a loner leaner body.

Centering: Physically bringing the focus to the center of the body, the powerhouse area between the lower ribs and pubic bone. Energetically, Pilates exercises are sourced from center.

Concentration: If one brings full attention to the exercise and does it with full commitment, maximum value will be obtained from each movement.

Control: Every Pilates exercise is done with complete muscular control. No body part is left to its own devices.

Precision: In Pilates, awareness is sustained throughout each movement. There is an appropriate placement, alignment relative to other body parts, and trajectory for each part of the body.

Breath: Joseph Pilates emphasized using a very full breath in his exercises. He advocated thinking of the lungs as a bellows -- using them strongly to pump the air fully in and out of the body. Most Pilates exercises coordinate with the breath, and using the breath properly is an integral part of Pilates exercise.

Flow: Pilates exercise is done in a flowing manner. Fluidity, grace, and ease are goals applied to all exercises. The energy of an exercise connects all body parts and flows through the body in an even way. Pilates equipment, like the reformer, are very good mirrors of one's flow and concentration as they tend to bang around and suddenly become quite "machine-like" if one loses ones control and flow.

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