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Pilates is one of the most popular fitness methods. With it, you can improve the condition of the spine and tighten the muscles of the whole body, and without the risk of injury.

We are in website Pilates was always thought to have been invented by fitness trainers somewhere in Hollywood and beautifully named to lure in the stars. So, it turns out that it is more correct to say “Pilates system” or “Pilates method”. And "Pilates" is the name of a man who invented his training system at the beginning of the 20th century, with its help he was cured of all diseases and lived to a ripe old age.

Josef Pilates conducts outdoor classes.

Joseph Pilates was born in 1883 in Germany into a poor Greek and German family and grew up as a sickly and frail boy. He suffered from asthma, rickets and other illnesses. Once, at the age of 9, he once again complained to his father that he was being bullied at school, and heard from him a phrase that changed everything: “You are the master of your own destiny. You can keep complaining or you can go and do something.”.

Josef began to study anatomy, wrestling, yoga, gymnastics and martial arts. And in adolescence, imbued with ancient Greek ideas about the ideal of a person who is healthy in body, mind and spirit, compiled for himself unique gymnastics. Training helped Josef not only get rid of diseases, but also build a proportional body- so that he even began to pose for students of art school. In addition, he was seriously engaged in boxing, skiing, gymnastics and diving.

Popular Pilates instructor Sylvia Roberts.

Sylvia works out on a simulator invented by Pilates.

When did the first World War, Josef was in England, where he performed as a circus artist, a professional boxer, and in addition, he trained English policemen. During the war, he was interned as a citizen of a hostile state on the Isle of Man. The conditions in the camp were harsh, and there were many sick and weakened people among the prisoners. Pilates insisted on working with them in his own way, and he was allowed to. And some of the wounded German soldiers could not get out of bed at all, and for them he came up with a simulator by attaching springs to the bed. All of his wards eventually survived.

By the way, this impromptu bed trainer became the basis for the Cadillac and Reformer spring trainers, invented by Pilates. Until now, they are used in fitness centers (but, by the way, you can work out effectively without any exercise equipment - both on a special mat and on a regular rug).

Pilates is engaged with a student on the Reformer simulator.

After the war, Josef was offered to train the German army according to his system. But he refused and emigrated to New York, where he opened a studio that quickly gained popularity. Famous dancers, athletes, movie stars went to Joe (as he was called in the USA).

His system can be called unique: unlike many other forms physical activity, it has stood the test of time and proven to be effective. As a recent study in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies found, Total 2 Pilates sessions a week improve mood, improve sleep quality and relieve back pain.

Isabelle Goulard, Victoria's Secret Angel, is known for her toned body. She is a fan of Pilates and often shows in instagram your workouts.

Gular makes one of basic exercises Pilates.

Joseph Pilates lived to the age of 84 and trained and worked with his students to the end. After his death in 1967, his technique was forgotten for a while, but soon became popular again thanks to the ballerina Romana Kryzhanovskaya, his student. And again, Pilates has become popular among celebrities and ordinary people - Madonna, John Travolta, Anne Hathaway, Uma Thurman, Alessandra Ambrosio and many other actors and models, as well as Olympic champions, are doing this technique.

There are also programs that have recently received recognition. One of these programs is
Pilates. The Pilates method combines elements of various directions physical education yoga, acrobatics, choreography, but at the same time he has general principles, which bring these elements into single system. This method of improving the body, which was proposed by Joseph Pilates, is aimed at stretching and strengthening muscles, improving their tone, correcting posture, increasing the level of development of flexibility, a sense of balance.

History of Pilates

German-American Josef Hubert Pilates was born in 1880 in a small town near Düsseldorf. Like all children of that time, he had rickets and asthma. At the age of 3, little Josef began to perform gymnastic exercises. The boy himself was very fragile and weak, but thanks to regular classes by the age of fifteen, he had muscles that any adult could dream of. He was even invited to be a model for anatomical drawings. Pilates became interested various types sports popular at the time. He took up Greco-Roman wrestling, swimming and boxing. At the age of 32, Joe emigrated to England and taught boxing and wrestling to Scotland Yard detectives. At the start of World War I, Joseph Pilates was taken prisoner. In prison, he continued to actively train and taught the exercises to his compatriots. Pilates developed a training program. For training, he used all sorts of items that could be found in custody. After the captivity, Joseph Pilates left England, spent a short time in Germany and emigrated in 1923 to America. Two years later he married nurse named Clara. Soon Joseph Pilates opened the first training studio. The studio was located in the building of the City New York Ballet Center. Pilates developed programs for dancers, and soon most New York dancers were training at the Joseph Pilates studio. Theater and film stars, dancers came to classes, all the high society of that time trained with Pilates. Ballet stars such as Martha Graham and George Balanchine trained at his school.

Pilates has made huge strides with his school. He passed on to his students the knowledge of how to properly perform breathing, physical exercises and stretching exercises. Pilates communicated with Chinese immigrants and introduced some of the principles of Thai Chi training into his set of exercises. He developed the new kind training and he himself called it the “Pilates method”. In the training program, he used various equipment created by himself. During the forties of the last century, the Pilates school was the most fashionable and trendy institution in New York. Joseph (Joe) Pilates died in 1967 at the age of 87. The Pilates method was forgotten for several decades until, in 1970, former Pilates student dancer Romana Krzanowska opened a Pilates studio in Los Angeles. Hollywood stars who strove for external perfection and were in search of new effective methods to combat overweight became Pilates students. Madonna, Tom Jones, John Travolta attended this school. Now this school is the most popular among Hollywood stars.
Throughout the world, Pilates has become a common activity. Joseph Pilates students have developed their own
Pilates style and brought it to their students. Forms of Pilates with a ball, for pregnant women, for children are becoming more and more attractive.

Principles of Pilates

Basic principles of the Pilates technique are control, concentration, conscious breathing, centering, relaxation, directed movement and coordination. The main goals of Pilates are to strengthen muscles, improve coordination and balance of the body, improve posture, stimulate circulation, and increase awareness of one's own body.
There are three types of Pilates workouts:

1. Floor workouts. These sets of exercises are performed on the floor, mostly sitting or lying down. Complexes can be aimed at achieving various
   purposes, for example, the removal of pain in different parts of the spine, to improve posture.
2. Training with special equipment. Exercises are also performed on the floor, but using different equipment: Pilates Ring, dumbbells, rubber shock absorbers, balls.
3. Workouts for special simulators. The main difference between Pilates simulators and ordinary ones is that the support on which you are doing the exercise is not rigidly fixed. At runtime strength exercise you have to put in extra effort to keep your balance on an unstable surface, while your body is forced to work a huge amount small muscles that don't work with regular workouts.

The Pilates training method was originally developed by and for men. For more than 50 years, Pilates has served as the basis for the training of intelligence agents, high-class athletes and dancers. In our time, it is a mistake to believe that Pilates training is designed to strengthen the figure and health of women only, it can be no less useful and effective for men. Pilates exercises significantly increase the flexibility and balance of the body, and all its characteristics are ideally suited to the fitness requirements for men. In Pilates training, the main emphasis is on the development of the muscles of the press and back, developing and shaping the so-called „ muscle corset". Pilates-specific training of these skeletal muscles is the basis of other training that
combined with many other sports. The difference between Pilates training for men and women is small, especially at the beginning of classes. Men may find that their muscles are tighter than women's, but Pilates exercises can be easily modified to stretch the muscles gradually. The ability to modify exercises in Pilates is one of the characteristics that allows you to individually select a system of exercises for everyone, taking into account their individual needs.

The founder of the system of physical exercises called Pilates was Josef Hubert Pilates. Josef was born in 1880 in small town located near Düsseldorf. The boy was born weak, suffered from rheumatic fever, asthma... But Josef's iron will made it possible to defeat the disease.

He developed his own system of exercises. And already at the age of fourteen, Pilates was an object of imitation of peers and a model of health. He got busy Greco-Roman wrestling, swimming and boxing. No one could believe that Josef, posing for the cameras as a model, was frail.

In 1912, Pilates moved to England, where the master of fitness and aerobics made a living working as a boxer, circus performer and even a self-defense trainer for Scotland Yard detectives. At the beginning of the First World War, Joseph Pilates was taken prisoner. In prison, he continued to actively train and taught the exercises to his fellow tribesmen. During the First World War, the system of physical exercises developed by Josef to restore the body helped many wounded combatants quickly return to full capacity. The uniqueness of the complex was that even bedridden patients could continuously engage in it.

In 1926 Josef immigrated to America. The first studio of Joseph and his wife, Clara, was in the same building as the New York City Ballet, on 8th Avenue. Pilates developed programs for dancers and soon the vast majority of New York dancers were training at the Joseph Pilates studio. Theater and film stars, dancers came to classes, all the high society of that time trained with Pilates. Ballet stars such as Martha Graham and George Balanchine trained at his school. By the beginning of the 60s, famous dancers considered it an honor to get into a Pilates master class.

Pilates communicated with Chinese immigrants and introduced some of the principles of Thai Chi training into his set of exercises. He developed a new type of training, called it "the Pilates method". The Pilates method emphasizes the interaction of the mind and body during exercise. The performance is accompanied by concentration on the respiratory rhythm, the correctness of the exercise and awareness of the effect of each exercise on a particular muscle group.

Joseph "Joe" Pilates died in 1967 at the age of 87. The Pilates method was forgotten for several decades until, in 1970, former Pilates student dancer Romana Krycanowska opened a Pilates studio in Los Angeles. Hollywood stars, striving for external perfection and in search of new effective methods for combating excess weight, became students of this school. Madonna, Tom Jones, John Travolta attended classes at the Pilates school more than once. Currently, this school is the most popular among Hollywood stars.

Among our compatriots, the world-famous ballerina Ilze Liepa is a fan of Josef Pilates exercises.

In 1990, Sean Gallagher bought the training studio of J. Pilates and founded Pilates, Inc. on its basis, registering the word Pilates as a trademark. Gallagher insisted that he owns all rights to the Pilates system, and any use of the word must be paid for. However, after many years of litigation, he was recognized as a fraud, and the word Pilates was generally used and publicly available.

Throughout the world, Pilates has become a common activity. The author of the wonderful technique was sure that not the quantity, but the quality of the exercises performed is much more important. Main principle Pilates, despite all the changes, is preserved at the present time. The students of Joseph Pilates each developed their own style of Pilates and brought it to their students.

"The body is made by the mind" is Joseph Pilates' favorite quote from Schiller.

Joseph (Joseph) Pilates. Born in Germany in 1880 near Düsseldorf. His childhood passed at a time when teenagers did not stand out with enviable health. Pilates himself suffered from a severe form of rickets as a child, and later struggled with asthma and many other comorbidities. Joseph Pilates' father was a gymnast, and as early as the age of ten, the boy had a craving for gymnastic exercises. Despite the fact that the boy was very sickly and fragile, his aspirations and desire to become stronger played a decisive role in the future. By the age of 15, Pilates acquired a well-defined muscular figure, and so beautiful and harmonious that he became a constantly invited guest. art schools as a posing model.

In addition to gymnastics, Joseph Pilates took great pleasure in swimming, wrestling and boxing. Already young athlete I thought about how to competently and methodically gather my knowledge together and further develop an effective system of my own training.

In 1912, Pilates moved to England. At the age of 32, he successfully works as a wrestling and boxing coach for the police. Pilates remained with the Scotland Yard police for quite a long time. The First World War threw Pilates into captivity, where, despite unsuitable conditions and difficult conditions, he continued to exercise regularly. In addition to the fact that he actively studied himself, Joseph managed to set up and introduce many fellow countrymen and comrades to the classes, among whom were many wounded and physically weakened by captivity. It was this work that allowed Pilates to supplement his methodological observations with exercises for rehabilitation and restoration of the weakened physics of the body. It was during this time that Pilates developed the fundamental theses of his Pilates system.

In 1926, Joseph Pilates moved permanently to the United States, where he soon opened his first training studio, which was located near the Metropolitan Ballet Center in New York. Soon, many dancers of the ballet center were already training at the Joseph Pilates School. Combining his postulates with some of the principles of Thai Chi gymnastics (Thai Chi), he created a new type of training, calling it the "Pilates method". The Joseph Pilates School for many years remained a very popular institution among the capital's residents, it was attended by many successful people that time.

Joseph Pilates died in 1967. In 1970, Polish Pilates student Romana Kryzanowska opened a similar school in Los Angeles. So her students were John Travolta, Madonna, Tom Jones, and other show business stars of those years.

Since the 90s of the 20th century, the “Pilates technique” has been actively used by traumatologists and rehabilitation clinic staff for recovery physical health sick. The classic method of Joseph Pilates has undergone a number of significant additions and updates to this day, which have been influenced by the latest achievements in the field of fitness. Today we have the most balanced set of physical exercises, known throughout the world under the name "Pilates".

Pilates is an effective fitness system that was designed to develop human body and keeping him in excellent physical shape.

The founder of this technique was Joseph Pilates. Initially, the author of the system called it "controlology", referring to the practice of exercising muscle control with the help of mental activity. He believed that the purpose of this system is to help people gain strength and self-confidence .

According to trainers, the peculiarity of Pilates is that this system allows you to fully work out all the muscles, up to the deepest and smallest, it is focused on strengthening the muscle frame, and not on building muscle mass.

History of Pilates

Josef Hubert Pilates was born at the end of the 19th century. As a child, Josef suffered from rheumatism, rickets and asthma. In order to improve his health, he began to do various physical exercises. And then he developed his own method.

After moving to England at the beginning of the 20th century, Joseph Pilates had to work as a circus performer, boxer and self-defense instructor for detectives. He continued to improve his system during the First World War while he was in camp at Lancaster.

Moving to New York, in 1923 he founded his first studio, which very soon gained great popularity due to the attractiveness of this exercise system and Josef's personal qualities.

Features of the Pilates system

Joseph Pilates stated that "this is the first component of happiness." In his opinion, the normal development of a person is possible only if the right way of life is maintained.

Supporters of Pilates believe that strengthening and stretching of muscles in combination with special visualizations produces a beneficial effect on the human body. According to this method, these three components help cleanse the blood and improve the activity of brain cells.

In the Pilates system, the most important step in the process of making positive changes is visualizing the end result. Obviously, in ideological terms, Josef was ahead of his time by more than fifty years. Today, the Pilates system is practiced in many countries around the world. During its existence, the technique has been improved and changed, but the basic principles that were developed by Josef remain unchanged.

Principles of Pilates

In this system, great attention is paid to breathing. While doing Pilates, it is recommended to breathe deeply. You should not greatly expand the upper region when inhaling chest and puff up your belly. You need to try to get air into lower part lungs. This way of breathing allows you to move freely, and saturates the working muscles with oxygen.

It is believed that one of the main goals of Pilates is to ensure the interaction between the mind and the body. Therefore, when performing exercises, it is necessary to concentrate on the task both physically and mentally. The effect of the program increases significantly if a person focuses on the muscles involved in the exercise.

An important aspect of the technique is the source of energy, which, according to Joseph Pilates, is located in the abdominal region. Performing any exercise begins with the retraction of the abdominal muscles. It is believed that these muscles support the spine and all vital organs. Tightening the abdominal muscles can improve general state health, buy even posture, cure many chronic diseases.

When practicing Pilates, you must follow a certain sequence of exercises. Movements must be done smoothly and at a calm pace. The most important thing is the accuracy of movements, which is achieved by physical control of the body.

Pilates exercises focus on strengthening and stretching the muscles. In many ways, the combination of deep breathing, stretching, and application of force is reminiscent of yoga. The complexes of exercises in this system produce a calming and tonic effect, but differ from yoga practices because the training itself is based on repetition.

All exercises of the complex must be performed, smoothly moving from one movement to another. The exercise starts at one specific point and ends at another. The goal is to make these points invisible to the overall perception of the workout. One exercise smoothly flows into the next. The movement does not stop, the completion of one exercise becomes the beginning of another.

Pilates involves stress-free workouts in unused areas. For example, when working out the muscles of the press, you do not need to help yourself with other muscles. It is believed that to obtain significant results, you should practice at least 4 times a week.

Firstly, it should be noted that absolutely everyone can do Pilates - there are practically no restrictions. Secondly, it is extremely important to remember that not a single movement, not a single exercise in this technique should cause pain, be unpleasant.

For training, you need to choose comfortable clothes that do not restrict movement. It is highly desirable to start exercising with an experienced trainer who will help you follow the correct execution of all movements. And, of course, Pilates classes will be beneficial, only if the training is regular.

Pilates is about taking care of your body. Experienced trainers recommend not to overstrain the body, as this not only does not give the desired effect, but also leads to injuries and poor health. This unique system of healing the body helps to achieve stable results, and is not an express method of preparing for the beach season!