Wear light and comfortable clothing that does not restrain your movement and in which you feel at ease. Additionally, wear socks.
Never! Pilates can be taken up at any age. Especially in a personal training setting we can focus on individual needs and preconditions. Pilates is for everyone, independent of age, gender and level of physical fitness. To cite Joseph Pilates: “You are only as young as your spine is flexible.”
Each class lasts around 60 minutes.
This depends entirely on your personal capacities and goals. To start out, it makes sense to train two times per week under supervision of a qualified instructor. Our goal is to teach you pilates “from scratch”, so that you can come to practice the exercises at home and to integrate Pilates into your daily life.
You can practice Pilates at any time of the day: in the morning, to get the circulation going, or in the evenings, to relax and wind down from the day. Adapt the training to your needs - the most important thing is to keep moving! However, you should not train after a heavy meal, when suffering from acute pain or a heavy infection.
Here, the likely most-cited Joseph Pilates quote: “In 10 sessions you'll feel the difference, in 20 sessions you'll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you'll have a whole new body". Despite this, pilates alone is not enough for optimal physical health - see question directly below.
No. For the healthy functioning of the cardiovascular system, you should additionally carry out endurance training.
Yes. While all exercises in the prone position (lying on your belly) are problematic and the supine (lying on your back) position should not be taken too long either, there are exercises that are well suited for pregnant women, when instructed by an experienced trainer. If you did Pilates before your pregnancy, you can continue during your pregnancy as well. The decision whether to practice pilates or not should only be taken on an individual basis. After delivery, Pilates training helps to get the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles back into shape.
In a gym it is often loud and hectic, in Pilates studios it is calm and personal. In a gym people often wear the newest outfits, the most stylish trainers, and are very focused on the external. For Pilates, one wears the clothing in one feels comfortable, and socks. The focus is turned within. You move for yourself, not for the mirror. Gyms are geared towards offering the latest trends in order to be competitive. This means that instructors are often trained in short workshops, and knowledge remains superficial. Pilates is also taught in many gyms, but class sizes are often not limited, creating large groups in which qualified training is impossible. In many cases, Pilates is watered down into just another “Legs, Bums and Tums” class.