Pilates: Types, benefits, side effects and precautions

These exercises work on several muscle groups, especially the core. This promotes overall strength, endurance and balance. It increases the range of motion and flexibility of joints. It requires proper breathing and mindfulness while practising the exercises. Therefore, it targets the body and mind as an integrated whole.

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Whether you already have some degree of body strength and flexibility or not, Pilates can help you improve this aspect of your fitness. Because it is a low impact exercise form, it doesn’t exhaust the muscles with bulky weight. Instead, a variety of exercise sequences are performed in low repetition. This process slowly but surely lengthens and stretches the muscles to increase flexibility. 

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Pilates workout is a core-centric training regime. Every Pilates move is slow, controlled and works the muscles, especially the core muscles (deep muscles located roughly in the abdominal, back and sciatic areas). The core muscles are essential for maintaining proper posture and practising other advanced exercises or athletic performances. This way of training helps strengthen and tone the core muscles. Maintaining and balancing Pilates positions therefore improves muscle coordination and balance. 

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Since Pilates stimulates the core muscles in the abdomen, back and trunk regions, it can help correct your spinal alignment while keeping you aware of correct postures and improving your flexibility. This helps in stabilising the backbone and postural structure, suggesting that Pilates is great for improving your posture.

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Pilates helps in gaining lean muscles and having more lean muscles helps burn more calories faster. As you progress as a Pilates practitioner, your exercise intensity levels also increase, which means that you are likely to burn more fat than before if you continue to practice Pilates in the long term. Moreover, a combination of regular Pilates with other dynamic forms of aerobic exercises along with eating a healthy, balanced diet can help you to lose weight easily.

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When you have back pain, especially chronic pain in the lower back region, it can lead to regular problems in movement and even become a cause of disability and lower quality of life in the long run. Pilates has been shown by many studies to have a therapeutic as well as preventative effect on people with back pain, meaning that not only can it provide you with better flexibility and muscle strength to reduce chronic back pain but also ensure that your condition does not get any worse. However, you must get the right trainer to ensure your pace and improvement is properly guided.

While Pilates is predominantly used across the world to strengthen the body, improve its flexibility and ensure you don’t have problems like back pain, most people tend to overlook the pulmonary benefits of Pilates. Some studies have shown that Pilates, by engaging deep muscles inside the body, also stimulates the muscles in your heart and lungs. This not only helps improve respiratory capacity and endurance but also positively affects your lung volume and oxygen flow rates.

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Any exercise form that is dynamic and intense enough to help you burn calories is great for blood circulation. Pilates improves your overall blood circulation levels as your heart pumps faster when you perform it. The positive effect of Pilates can also be seen in lowered cholesterol levels as this exercise form helps burn fat and creates more lean muscle mass. What’s more, being a low-impact exercise, Pilates also decreases physical and emotional stress, improves respiratory and metabolic functions and is, therefore, one of the best workouts for your heart health.

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It’s easy to understand how practising Pilates can prevent injury in the short and long terms by increasing mobility, muscle strength and flexibility. What you may not know, though, is that Pilates can also help in the rehabilitation of those who are injured. Pilates improves functional movements of the body that can help a person with injuries (especially muscle injuries) gain the lost strength of the muscles and joints. This not only speeds up the recovery process but also eliminates structural impairments that may emerge due to the injury in the long term. This is the reason why physiotherapists and practitioners of exercise medicine employ Pilates as a method of injury rehabilitation today.

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Like almost all forms of exercise and fitness regimens, Pilates does more than just improve your physical fitness and wellbeing. Pilates consists of slow and effective movements that require concentration and muscle-mind coordination. This technique helps channelise the mind to concentrate on the body and breathing at the same time. This ultimately helps build a connection between the mind and body, thus relieving stress. Practising Pilates, in the long run, can help you de-stress and find balance in your mental and emotional status too.

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