Physical fitness can neither be acquired by wishful thinking nor by outright purchase.
{Joseph Pilates}
You deserve to get the most out of life. In order to do this, you need to have a healthy body, a clear mind, and a soaring spirit. Pilates Fusion, much more than a run-of-the-mill exercise book, aims to teach you what you need to know to condition your body and your mind and to release your inner spirit. By following the simple steps in this book you can be strong, beautiful, fit, and fantastic for life.
It’s never too early or too late for you to start feeling your best. Seize the moment and make it yours.
Pilates is a terrific way to get in shape, flatten your stomach, tone up your muscles, and improve your posture. It’s also an excellent way to restore your body after pregnancy or improve your sports performance. After practicing a few months, you (and others!) will notice the change in your physique.
The Pilates practice includes exercises performed on a floor mat and exercises done using specialized equipment such as the Reformer, the Trapeze Table, and the Wunda Chair. The Pilates mat practice may be performed alone or be augmented by the use of props or equipment. In an effort to make Pilates accessible to everyone, this book focuses on mat exercises that require a minimal amount of equipment.
The Pilates approach works for everyone because it trains and conditions the deepest muscles at the body’s center, or “core.” When you train your core muscles, your posture and your body awareness improve. And when you perform the coordinated muscle movement patterns of Pilates, your grace, ease, and efficiency of movement also increase. For most people, this means eliminating back pain and reducing back injuries, not to mention firming up the abdominal and torso muscles. For athletes, it means improving speed and power and reducing injuries.
Pilates targets the core muscles, those internal muscles that we so often forget about when performing conventional workout routines. These muscles stabilize the spine, shoulders, and pelvis. The core muscles lie on top of one another in layers. The deepest muscles stabilize the spinal column and give the brain “position sense” information about where the vertebrae are in space and in relation to the rest of the body. The muscles in the middle layer brace the spinal column, particularly the lower back, helping to prevent injuries. The muscles in the outermost layer move the trunk. When you bend, twist, or rotate, you are using the outer-layer muscles. Exercise and movement professionals refer to these outermost muscles as “global,” or “mover,” muscles.
Historically, body-building exercises have targeted mover muscles because these muscles lie directly under the skin and are most visible when toned. However, research shows that the most effective core training targets each layer of muscles to optimize spinal stabilization and overall fitness—in effect, “working from the inside out.” East Asian movement disciplines such as Tai Chi Chuan (a slow, meditative form of shadow boxing), Qigong, karate, and other martial arts also emphasize training from the body’s center, known as t’an tien in Chinese and hara in Japanese. Joseph Pilates referred to the use of the deeper abdominal muscles as “centering” or strengthening the “powerhouse.”
Here’s a great exercise to help you distinguish between your deeper stabilizer muscles and your more superficial mover muscles.
1 Stand tall and place your palms on your belly. Inhale and, as you exhale, bend forward slightly. Notice that, as you bent forward using your mover (rectus abdominus) muscles, your belly bulged downward.
2 Stand tall again with your palms on your belly. Inhale and, as you exhale, draw your navel toward your spine, “scooping” your abdominal area. Maintain this muscle action in your abdominals. Inhale again, then exhale and bend forward, keeping your navel lifted up toward your spine. This time notice that, as you bent forward, your belly did not bulge downward but instead stayed up close to your spine.
3 Stand up and relax.
Activating your deeper abdominal muscles kept the belly from bulging. When you perform your Pilates exercises, you will consistently activate the deeper abdominal layer.
Before you begin your Pilates program, assess your posture to create a benchmark against which to measure your progress.
1 Wear minimal, form-fitting clothing so you can see your physique.
2 Stand naturally, facing sideways, in front of a full-length mirror. Turn your head to view yourself in the mirror.
3 Check to see whether your ears and the midpoints of your shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle are in a straight line.
4 Notice whether your lower back is flat, excessively arched, or neutral.
5 Notice whether your palms face the sides of your body or your shoulders round forward with your palms facing back.
After exercising regularly for one month, recheck your posture for any improvement.
When we focus on building only the mover muscles, we create imbalances that can lead to injury and chronic pain. If the inner stabilizer muscles are weak, then the outer mover muscles must assist in stabilization functions. This inefficient, unbalanced division of muscle labor can lead to chronic tension and pain in mover muscles—particularly in the lower-back, neck, and shoulder areas—which are not designed to play a “bracing” role.
An imbalance can also occur when one part of an opposing muscle group (such as the biceps and triceps, or the chest and back muscles) dominates the other due to greater strength. For example, if you sit at a desk all day, your chest and front-shoulder muscles are probably stronger than your upper-back and rear-shoulder muscles, causing your shoulders to round forward.
Pilates exercises can retrain your body’s muscles to perform their intended functions; you can condition your stabilizer muscles to stabilize and your mover muscles to move. While the work is subtle and requires attention to detail, you will continue to progress with each exercise session. As your muscles begin to function more efficiently, you’ll increase your overall strength and feeling of well-being. Over time, you can transform your entire body.
One visible benefit of Pilates is improved posture, which can make you feel tall and confident and can even make you look thinner. The inner stabilizer muscles targeted in Pilates exercises support the spine and help maintain correct spinal alignment, or “neutral alignment.” When the spine is aligned correctly, the ear, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle line up with each other vertically. The natural, gentle S shape of the spinal column is retained and the discs are not compressed.
When you sit or stand using proper spinal alignment, you avoid back pain and pinching of nerves that run through the spinal column. Improper alignment can lead to chronic muscular tension, headaches, restricted blood flow, pinched nerves, faulty breathing patterns, poor digestion, and reduced overall health and well-being. You can assess your posture with the “Quick Posture Check” on the facing page.
All in all, practicing Pilates will benefit your health, energy, and appearance. Over time, you will notice increased strength in your back, abdominal, and pelvic-floor muscles; as a result your posture will improve, making you look taller and slimmer. The muscles of your legs, hips, shoulders, chest, and arms will become toned, giving you added flexibility and strength. This additional strength will energize you throughout each day and your increased flexibility will give you ease and grace as you move. With continued practice you’ll find that your metabolism increases, which in turn will cause your energy to increase, so that you can be more active.
The Pilates exercise program was invented by a man who firmly believed that a lack of physical activity undermines physical health. In the “good old days,” people needed to exert more energy just to get through the day and keep food on the table. Our lives today are not as physically demanding. Weakness, stiffness, and weight gain result. It’s not our fault. Our modern environments simply do not demand that we physically exert ourselves to survive.
Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in 1880 in Dusseldorf, Germany. During his childhood, he suffered from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever. To improve his health, the determined young man turned to physical training. He took up diving, skiing, gymnastics, and bodybuilding. By the time he reached the age of fourteen, his physique was so well developed that he worked as a model for anatomical charts.
Joseph Pilates invented several apparatuses to complement his exercises. Some of his inventions include the following:
Reformer
Inspired by a hospital bed, the Reformer features a sliding carriage that rests on top of a large rectangular frame upon four legs. At one end of the frame is a foot bar. Two straps can be looped around the feet or hands for exercise variations involving arm and leg movements. Springs attached to the carriage and frame provide resistance.
Trapeze Table
(also called Trap Table) Pilates created the Trapeze Table while being held in a British internment camp, where he attached bedsprings to walls above hospital beds to provide patients with a way to exercise while bedridden. The Trapeze Table resembles a table with four metal posts connected at the top by a rectangular frame. At one end is a spring-loaded “push-through bar.” At the other end are a variety of springs and a hanging bar that looks like a trapeze.
Wunda Chair
Pilates intended this exercise tool to double as a household chair when not in use. It resembles a step stool with a padded seat. Attached to the inside of the stool is a bar with springs. To perform exercises on the Wunda Chair one pushes the spring-loaded bar up and down with either the feet or the hands. Poles can be added to the sides to provide arm support for exercises performed when standing on top of the chair.
While these tools are very helpful to stabilize the body while strengthening and lengthening the muscles, you can achieve similar results with the mat exercises.
During World War I he worked in a hospital while detained as an enemy alien in British internment camps. There he worked to develop physical conditioning methods to rehabilitate those confined to bed. He created training equipment from beds, using bedsprings to facilitate exercise. These inventions formed the basis for the now-popular Reformer, which still resembles a cot, and for the Trapeze Table, which looks like a table with hanging springs and bars.
After the war, Pilates returned to Germany. There he met Rudolph von Laban, a choreographer, who incorporated some of Pilates’ methods into his own teaching. Modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm learned these exercises from von Laban and included them in her dance class warm-ups. In 1926, Pilates immigrated to New York, where he opened a physical fitness studio. Pilates’ clientele included George Balanchine, Martha Graham, Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, and Ron Fletcher, among others. Balanchine was a strong advocate of the benefits of Pilates’ method and invited Pilates to train dancers in the New York City Ballet. Today, many Pilates exercises remain a staple of dance conditioning.
Over the years, Joseph Pilates’ apprentices continued to develop his work and incorporate their own influences. Now, variations of the Pilates method are practiced around the globe and millions of people from all walks of life enjoy the conditioning benefits of this form of exercise. What unites the various strands of the Pilates method is the adherence to the basic principles and a love for the work itself.
With its focus on flowing movement patterns and breathing techniques, Pilates is similar to ancient Eastern mind-body practices such as Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, and martial arts. But Pilates is neither a spiritual nor an intuitive practice. Rather, the purpose of Pilates training is to improve the physique. The Pilates method reflects its modern Western influence in its emphasis on the use of will and the rational mind; Joseph Pilates named his system of exercise Contrology because he believed that conscious control of muscular movements could lead to physical perfection, health, and happiness. However, today, in addition to physical wellness, we need mental wellness to manage stress, relax, and stay centered. That’s where Pilates Fusion comes in. It melds the best of the Pilates practice with Eastern philosophy.
More and more we hear about the mind-body-spirit connection. But what is it really? Eastern medicine and exercise disciplines use a holistic approach that takes into account the health of the body, mind, and spirit. Traditional Chinese medicine addresses both emotional and physical symptoms. Ancient treatments such as acupuncture restore the flow of healthy life energy and bring the body, mind, and spirit back into a state of balance. The same can be said of Eastern exercise disciplines such as yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, and martial arts. These disciplines focus not only on perfecting physical movements but also on restoring balance to the mind, the body, and the spirit.
The Western medical research community has long been investigating the power of the mind-and-body relationship to improve and promote health. Current research in preventive medicine and exercise science corroborates the benefits of Eastern forms of mind-body training. Studies confirm that Tai Chi Chuan and yoga improve physical health, sleep, and stress and anger management; decrease pain and pain sensitivity; and instill a greater sense of well-being.
In the West, the mind-body focus of Eastern disciplines offers a new training approach. The Pilates Fusion program presented in this book combines the Western ideals of rational and scientific attention to movement with the Eastern concept of holistic health. By including Eastern-inspired concepts in your approach to exercise, you can experience the immediate benefits of awakening your spirit as you cultivate the more gradual physical changes that will result from your Pilates practice. In this process you will strengthen not only your body, but also the balance and flow of your own life-force energy.
If you have difficulty seeing images in your mind’s eye or you don’t enjoy doing visualizations, simply focus on your breath and your physical sensations. The skill of visualizing, like any skill, improves with practice. Be patient and view it as a tool that serves you in a positive way, not as a source of frustration. Find a harmonious balance that’s effective for you.
To help you make the mind-body-spirit connections as you practice, I’ve included a “Spirit” cue for each exercise. These cues offer inspiring visualization ideas to help you awaken your spirit, develop awareness of your body’s vital energy, and see yourself as part of the scheme of all living beings.
Visualization works because the mind processes mental images in the same manner that it processes actual experiences. As you see and experience yourself in your mind’s eye, your body will follow. And when you perform each exercise and connect your mind both with your body’s energy and with the life energy of the natural, living world, you increase your sense of your own place on the planet. You see yourself as a part of the whole universe of life, rather than as an isolated being. This connects you with your deepest level of inner calm and tranquility.
As you continue your practice, you’ll find that your awareness of your inner self and your external environment is heightened. Over time, you will start to notice when you hunch your shoulders, grind your teeth, or clench your fists, actions that may have previously gone unobserved. You’ll tune in to your natural signals of fatigue, tension, energy, and even hunger. You will be able to detect subtle cues that signal potential injuries before they become more serious problems.
While toning up your body you will unite your physical self with your inner being—you will find greater connectedness between your mind, body, and spirit. In Eastern traditions, masters who are believed to have attained the highest state of mental development are those who can keep their mental focus continuously in the present, which is actually much more difficult than it sounds. Many of us, consciously or unconsciously, spend a great deal of our time worrying about tomorrow or ruminating about the past. When we are preoccupied with our thoughts, we are not truly experiencing the present moment. We are living more in our mind than in our body. We miss out on what is happening here and now. Practicing Pilates Fusion will help you learn to clear your mind and focus on the present.
This journey to increased self-awareness is one of the most rewarding aspects of your practice. When I’m teaching, I continually remind my students that their most powerful work is accomplished when they are off the mat and away from the training room. When you find yourself applying the lessons of your Pilates exercises while you sit at your desk, on your couch, or in your car while stuck in traffic, you will have begun your true transformation. You no longer mindlessly slouch, putting pressure on your spinal discs and compressing your internal organs. Instead, you stand or sit up tall and proud, feeling calm, relaxed, and at ease with yourself.
Your Pilates Fusion program is not simply about end results and achieving goals; it’s about enjoying the process. It’s about feeling pleasure and joy in movement as an affirmation of your own life-force energy—and of your place in the wondrous scheme of all living things. This exercise program is a potent part of your own self-care. Your health and well-being lies within you. All you need to do is make a commitment to draw it out. As you practice, congratulate yourself each day for taking steps to realize your potential and live more fully.
Research has shown that when people concentrate on the muscles they are training they achieve more rapid results. As you prepare for each and every movement during your workout, mentally review not only your technique but also your image of yourself performing the exercise. Visualize the movement, see your strong and healthy muscles, and feel the heat generated by your own power. When you concentrate, your workout will fly by and you will finish with a great sense of accomplishment.
One study found that participants who communicated positive messages to their muscles were able to work harder and achieve more gains. Fill your mind with positive thoughts, reminding yourself of everything that you can achieve. Avoid saying, “I’m so tired. I’m never going to make it.” Instead, tell yourself, “I feel my strength. I’m doing great. I’m doing the best I can at this moment.”
My intention with Pilates Fusion is to outline simple steps for those who want to try Pilates but find it hard to fit new activities into their lives. By breaking down the exercises into simple steps and offering visualizations to free the inner spirit, I aim to make Pilates an easy and enriching fitness program for everyone.
Anything we can do to make wellness a priority in our lives will have a positive effect on our health, even if we can spare only a few minutes a day. I’ve included basic exercises that you can practice if you have just a few minutes, along with more advanced exercises and recommended exercise sequences. Pilates Fusion won’t restrict you with rules and regulations. Rather, the book will show you how to adapt the practice to your busy lifestyle. So, whether you have ten minutes or a whole hour, you’ll get the maximum benefit for your time. And you’ll feel good about taking small steps every day, an approach that will have a powerful impact in the long run.
Use the exercises in this book in the manner that best suits you. If you prefer to focus solely on physical training, you will condition your muscles and improve your mind-body connection and body awareness. If you choose to work on a deeper level and explore and strengthen your own inner energy, then you can use the visualization, relaxation, and deep-breathing exercises to connect with your inner spirit.
Now, set aside any worries about your current fitness level and abilities. It doesn’t matter whether you are fit or experienced in exercise. What matters is that you simply embrace who you are and begin.