The Greeks believed in pursuit of physical, intellectual and ethical excellence. They would spend hours at gymnasiums where they would discuss sports, religion, aesthetics, and the importance of them in the lives of both men and women, hand in hand. These gymnasiums were also centers for practicing various athletics, marksmanships, equestrian, swordsmanship, wrestling etc. Trainers would have rigorous regimes and maintain a book on each person. Such altruism was also enjoyed by women, who were respected and held in high esteem and formed a very important voice of society and politics. This cannot be explained any better than by pointing out that their patron for hunting was the goddess Artemis.

This said, to bring us back to Pilates, it is this respect and admiration for beauty and spirit and holistic development of a person's being, was what inspired Dr. Pilates to start his famous endeavor. Born of a prize winning Greek gymnast father and a mother who was a naturopath and believed in stimulating the body for healing it; combined with his own afflictions of asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever, were keys to his success. His constant thirst for knowledge for eastern and western practices made him a self-taught anatomical guru by the age of 14. His life's works includes performing as a boxer in a circus, creating a Greek statue act, a physiotherapist during WWI, and training the Hamburg Military Police. He named his method 'Controlology' and even devised several equipments to further assist the exercises. His steadfast belief was best demonstrated when his students were the ones standing without succumbing to the flu epidemic that swept the world in 1918.

Get Your Free Profile Analysis

Pilates enjoyed 40 golden years from 1926 to 1966 during which time he and his wife founded several studios, organized workshops, and would train dancers some of whom even incorporated these exercises in their routines and teachings. Dr. Pilates died of emphysema in October 1967 at the age of 87. His wife carried on after him for ten more years. Till his dying day, he was the epitome of a sculpted body, and a disciplined lifestyle.

Dr. Pilates believed that smaller, slower, smoother, concentrated efforts to align the body and to make it stronger from within to carry its weight and perform in a fluid motion were more important than just doing a rigorous fast workout or a workout with weights. These are also the main principles of Pilates. Using ones own bodies as weights, the lower back, abdomen and buttocks, which also are regarded as the core muscles, are strengthened so that the rest of the body can move freely, hence the term 'controlology.' Pilates mainly consists of a series of calisthenics (coined from the Greek word 'kalos', meaning beauty and 'sthenos', meaning strength) exercises and the use of five equipments which were designed by the founder himself. The most common form of Pilates exercises practiced worldwide is the matwork done on a padded mat.

The physiology of weight loss is that you burn your calories equal to or more than what you intake. When somebody actively moves ones body the stored fat is converted to energy. When you exercise, you expend your energy. The miracle happens afterwards when you are resting. The stored fat starts to migrate to various other body parts, is converted into energy by the mitochondria in the cells, and gets used in the making new blood vessels to carry oxygen to muscles there. That is why, even if you are aching after a sweaty workout you should not worry unless, of course, it persists and does not go away even when you have become accustomed with the routine.

Page 1 of 2   1 | 2  Next>>

  Recent Articles

  Email

  Discuss     Print      Subscribe

More Stories:

View Complete List of Articles