Pilates Without Perplexity: Calisthenics For the Core

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At Manhattan's Equinox Fitness Club, Pilates instructor Linda Farrell began a recent class with questions. "Any injuries I should be aware of?" she asks, scanning the room of twenty participants, who range in age from mid-twenties to older than seventy.

No hands go up.

She pauses, then asks, "Anyone new to Pilates?"

Again, no takers. At least, not this evening. On those occasions when newcomers do raise their hands, Farrell advises them not to push a move if it hurts and to practice what she considers a Pilates mantra: Relax -- keep breathing.

Many in the group have studied with Farrell for years, and most have rushed from work to make the 6:30 P.M. class.

"After class, I feel like it's the beginning of the day instead of the end," says Amanda Michels, a first-year math teacher at Manhattan's private Trinity School.

Pilates has been around for decades, but, perhaps because of its mystifying name, many people who are no strangers to working out still have odd ideas -- or none at all -- about what it entails. A student of Farrell's for three years, Michels used to have the same misconceptions. "Looking in a class from the outside, it appears that it's not very difficult," she says, "but if you're doing it right, you sweat a lot. It's amazing to me that you can get such a great workout with subtle movements."

Pilates is meant to improve strength, flexibility, and balance. The happy by-products are toned, lean, elongated muscles. Farrell, a forty-one-year-old with a slender physique that's the envy of those half her age, is living proof that, with perspiration and persistence, Pilates gets results.

"It accomplishes this by concentrating on the 'core' or 'power house,'" explains Farrell, referring to the muscles that support the abdominal and lower-back areas. "Pilates also teaches you how to move correctly by engaging your core muscles."

Pilates in the United States dates to 1926, when Joseph Hubertus Pilates came to New York City from Germany and began to train prominent choreographers. Over the years, he worked with Martha Graham and George Balanchine, as well as Sir Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, and other well-known actors.

Born in 1880, Pilates was a sickly child who began exploring ways to improve his health. Eventually, he devised a system of exercises called contrology, focusing on "the core" and done on mats and equipment. (After his death in 1967, the system was renamed for him.) During World War I, the British captured Pilates, who was serving in the German army, and placed him in a prisoner-of-war camp, where he used his method to rehabilitate injured soldiers by devising equipment from straps, pulleys, and springs from their beds.

The Pilates device today known rather forbiddingly as the Reformer is based on this early equipment. Though Pilates instructor Farrell, a lifelong dancer who took up Pilates because she'd begun to suffer dance-related injuries, acknowledges the benefits of such equipment, she believes simply working on a mat is equally beneficial.

"The mat is just as effective, because you work with your own body weight and gravity," she says. "A good teacher can cue you to move with fluidity and control."

Today, Pilates is a standard offering in health clubs, colleges, and even professional sports teams. From 2000 to 2004, the number of Pilates participants grew from 1.7 million to more than 10.6 million, according to Sporting Goods Manufacturing International.

Farrell laughs when recalling a jock who took her class for the first time. "He had all the typical guy issues -- tight hamstrings and not enough core strength to support moves," she says, adding that he also believed Pilates was "for girls." One hour changes that perception. "After class," Farrell says, "he told me this was the hardest exercise class he'd ever taken."

Evantheia Schibsted is a contributing writer to Edutopia.