Health & Fitness Blog

One afternoon fifty-five years ago, Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon was introduced to a man who had created an unusual form of exercise that was all the rage in New York. She began taking lessons at a studio on 8th Avenue at 56th Street from a man named Joseph Pilates. At 100, Mrs. Mellon is one of Joseph Pilates’ few surviving students.

The reclusive billionaire heiress, widow of investor and philanthropist Paul Mellon, still does Pilates every day at her 4,000-acre estate, Oak Spring Farms in Upperville VA. One of the world’s wealthiest women — and most private — the sprightly centenarian actively oversees her vast gardens, art collections and thoroughbreds.  In an interview with Vanity Fair on the eve of her 100th birthday, she credited her remarkable longevity to her daily sessions of Pilates that she learned from her first instructor, “Joseph.”

Swimmer Natalie Coughlin, winner of eleven Olympic medals, credits Pilates as part of the dryland training that has led to her success in the pool. Pilates has, “without a doubt,” improved her performance in the pool, says Coughlin, who began doing Pilates in 2000. “It’s been huge for my training because it’s all about strength with form and flexibility and engaging your core, things that are absolutely crucial when you’re in the water,” she said.

“It’s taught me more about my body and how it’s supposed to work,” she says. While chronic shoulder tension and the accompanying tension headaches are not uncommon among competitive swimmers, Coughlin said, those residual compaints vanished in her body because Pilates “helps me focus on the muscles that need to be working, and relax the muscles that don’t need to work.”

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN: A client who started Pilates training with me in six weeks ago has a problem on her hands – albeit one that many of our Pilates clients tend to have.  After just a few weeks of training two to three times a week, a dress that she had purchased to attend a special event later this month was too large.  Like many Pilates clients, she did not drastically drop weight, but she firmed up from the inside. She dutifully chose another dress, but that dress, too, now no longer fits. She is now on her third or fourth dress, and with the event a few weeks away, she needs to get accustomed to shopping for clothes to fit her shrinking frame.

It is important to note that Joseph Pilates did not directly set out the Pilates principles. They are concepts distilled from Joseph Pilates’ work by later instructors. Because of this, there is not always agreement in the Pilates community about the order of the principles, the specific words used for certain concepts, or the number of principles. Nevertheless, you will find some version of the Pilates principles–similar to what I present here–to be part of almost any Pilates training program you pursue.

Joseph Pilates originally called his work “contrology.” He considered this to be a body/mind/spirit approach to movement founded on the integrative effect of principles such as centering, concentration, control, precision, breath, and flow. Whether one is working out on a mat or using Pilates equipment, like the reformer or cadillac, these basic principles infuse each exercise with intention and fullness of expression:

Centering: Physically bringing the focus to the center of the body, the powerhouse area between the lower ribs and pubic bone.

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 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 Pilates principles may sound a bit abstract, but the integration of these principles accounts for the balance, grace, and ease that one can experience as a result of practicing Pilates.

Today a new client had her second Pilates session.  She is a former dancer and was excited to feel that she had found “those” muscles again, the muscles of the innermost core that dancers use to maintain their center.  Several days later, I was thrilled to hear another client, who had never before danced, describing a feeling in her abdominal area – something that she never before had felt that was “a lot different” from abdominal work she had done before.