|
|
About Joseph Pilates and the Pilates Method
"Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. Our interpretation of physical fitness is the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily, and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneous zest and please". - Joseph Hubertus Pilates
Pilates was enamored of the classical Greek idea of a man who is balance equally in body, mind, and spirit. His experiences taught him to believe that the (1950’s!) modern life-style, bad posture, and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health. His answer to these problems was to design a unique series of vigorous physical exercises that help to correct muscular imbalances and improve posture, coordination, balance, strength, and flexibility, as well as to increase breathing capacity and organ function. He also invented a variety of machines, based on spring-resistance that could be used to perform these exercises.
There is a famous story about Pilates’ inspiration for his unique apparatus. Before World War I, he was touring England as a circus performer and professional boxer and even teaching self-defence to the Scotland Yard police force. But when war broke out, he found himself interned in England as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. The health conditions in the internment camps were not great, but Pilates insisted everyone in his cell block to participate in daily exercise routines to help them maintain both their physical and mental well-being. However, some of the injured German soldiers were too weak to get out bed. Not content to leave his comrades lying idle, Pilates took springs from the beds and attached them to the headboards and footboards of the iron bed frames, turning them into equipment that proved a type of resistance exercise for this bedridden “patients”.
These mechanized beds were the forerunners of the spring-based exercise machines, such as the Cadillac and the Universal Reformer, for which the Pilates method is known today. Pilates’ legend has it that during the great flu epidemic of 1918, not a single one of the soldiers under his care died. He credited his technique (which he called “Contrology or Art of Control”) for the prisoners’ strength and fitness, remarkable under the less than optimum living conditions of internment camps, which were hit especially hard by this deadly flu.
Pilates was enamored of the classical Greek idea of a man who is balance equally in body, mind, and spirit. His experiences taught him to believe that the (1950’s!) modern life-style, bad posture, and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health. His answer to these problems was to design a unique series of vigorous physical exercises that help to correct muscular imbalances and improve posture, coordination, balance, strength, and flexibility, as well as to increase breathing capacity and organ function. He also invented a variety of machines, based on spring-resistance that could be used to perform these exercises.
There is a famous story about Pilates’ inspiration for his unique apparatus. Before World War I, he was touring England as a circus performer and professional boxer and even teaching self-defence to the Scotland Yard police force. But when war broke out, he found himself interned in England as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. The health conditions in the internment camps were not great, but Pilates insisted everyone in his cell block to participate in daily exercise routines to help them maintain both their physical and mental well-being. However, some of the injured German soldiers were too weak to get out bed. Not content to leave his comrades lying idle, Pilates took springs from the beds and attached them to the headboards and footboards of the iron bed frames, turning them into equipment that proved a type of resistance exercise for this bedridden “patients”.
These mechanized beds were the forerunners of the spring-based exercise machines, such as the Cadillac and the Universal Reformer, for which the Pilates method is known today. Pilates’ legend has it that during the great flu epidemic of 1918, not a single one of the soldiers under his care died. He credited his technique (which he called “Contrology or Art of Control”) for the prisoners’ strength and fitness, remarkable under the less than optimum living conditions of internment camps, which were hit especially hard by this deadly flu.
