PILATES
It’s all about the core

By MARY ROSS

Pilates enthusiasts are everywhere these days. Athletes, dancers and movie stars like Jennifer Aniston and Charlize Theron practice Pilates, and great athletes such as tennis star Martina Navratilova and the San Francisco 49ers are doing it.

Sara Talbert, director of Pilates at Greenwood Athletic Club in Englewood, has taught this discipline for 16 years. She has seen a lot of athletes improve their core strength and flexibility, benefiting all of their sports.

“We work on decompressing and lengthening the spine, which will always make the body feel better. People develop poor body mechanics and use one side of their bodies more than the other. Pilates balances that out,” she explains.

Unlike yoga, Pilates uses several different types of spring-loaded machines: the Reformer, which is a flat bed with springs, and a pulley system that offers resistance; the Cadillac, a seated machine; the Tower and Barrel; and mat work.

Joseph Pilates (1810-1967) said in his biography, “I invented all these machines. I used to exercise rheumatic patients. I thought, why use my strength? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it.”

Pilates had been the puny kid at school who was constantly picked on by the big bullies in his small town near Dusseldorf, Germany. His father was a prize-winning gymnast, and his mother was a naturopath who believed that the body could be stimulated to heal itself. Joseph suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. A family physician gave him an old anatomy book, and he studied every part of the body, learning yoga, Zen and ancient Greek and Roman exercise regimens.

He became a boxer, diver and skier and then moved to England in 1912 and became a circus performer with his brother Fred in a Greek statue act. Pilates believed in the Greek ideal of a person who is balanced in body, mind and spirit. He thought our modern lifestyle, bad posture and poor breathing were the seeds of poor health.

At the start of World War I, Pilates was interned in an enemy alien camp in England, where he taught self-defense and wrestling. It was here that he began developing his original exercises known as “contrology.”

He moved to America at age 45 and opened a gym in New York City with his wife Clara in a building that housed several dance studios. There he became a teacher to many dancers.

Melissa Levy, a personal trainer at Kinetic Fitness Studio in Cherry Creek, taught Pilates to dancers as well as to the Detroit Lions in Michigan. “A lot of dancers would come in for that lengthening effect and mobility. It’s very posture focused. Pilates is very intricate, very precise,” Levy says.

The Detroit Lions had been sent there by their trainer. “They would walk in there, and they weren’t into it at all,” Levy recalls. “They were fun to work with because they definitely had no flexibility. But the guys who grasped onto it saw results, with greater flexibility in their hamstrings and lower backs.

“I also had older women in their seventies who loved it because it was social, and they didn’t have to work that hard, but they knew they were getting results — flexibility mostly and core strength,” Levy says.

Joan Birkland, who is director of Sportswomen of Colorado and former Colorado state golf and tennis champion, says about Pilates and golf, “Core and balance are the two things you need in a golf swing. Pilates makes you more flexible and works on core strength, and that’s what you need on the golf course.”

Ginger Stookesberry, one of Birkland’s teammates, has this to say about the Pilates she has done for 10 years: “My golf game has improved enormously. I’ve dropped two shots. I don’t feel stiff, and my follow-through is way more than it used to be. I carry all my tension in my shoulders and neck. Now I relax and let the core do it. I know how to keep my back neutral and use my core.”

Talbert confirms the benefits a variety of athletic individuals experience. “Athletes often use their global muscles, the bigger muscles, for work that your muscles close to your spine should be doing,” she says.

“Swimmers tend to have that rounded shoulder, so we work on opening the chest, but we’re careful not to mess up their stroke by changing their posture too much. With tennis players, their right arm is a lot bigger than their left. So we try to even out the spine. Runners are tight in the hip flexors and hamstrings, so we work on opening the hips and strengthening. It’s always going to be the core.”

Instructors also see benefits to people who have injuries. Nicole Cutler of Pilates Infusion in Denver comments, “I had a woman in her sixties who could barely walk after three knee surgeries, and she just went on a two-week bike trip. I had a guy in his fourties with bulging discs who had four of them fused. He didn’t do anything for a year. He strengthened his core and decompressed his spine and is back doing his sports.”

Amy Hill, a physical therapist and Pilates instructor in Parker, has had several patients who were referred to her by their physicians. “Pilates can be assistive, resistive or neutral. Anything I treat — a back, a shoulder — I incorporate Pilates in their treatment. Someone with a herniated disc, I work with their injury and have the anatomical basis to know what types of exercise they can do,” she says.

Myths abound about Pilates: It’s a derivative of yoga, it’s just for flabby abs, it’s easy, and it’s mostly for women. Joseph Pilates studied yoga, and they are both mind/body disciplines, but they are different. Yoga has more of a spiritual aspect to it and is derived from an ancient Indian practice. Pilates does fix flabby abs since it focuses on core strengthening, especially the deeper abdominal muscles, so it’s particularly effective for people with lower back pain. But it also works the entire body.

There are a lot of beginner classes around these days, and Pilates can be modified to the fitness level of the user, but intermediate and advanced forms of the practice require a high level of fitness and effort. NFL players are doing Pilates, the Cleveland Indians baseball team is doing it, and even Hugh Grant takes Pilates. It’s not just for women. The benefits are for everyone. “I feel taller when I walk out of Pilates,” says Stookesberry.

Talbert agrees: “The big thing is posture. You stand taller. Pilates stimulates your nervous system. You feel like you’re floating on your feet when you’re done.”