What it is and why you should try it
Pilates is a form of exercising.
Some people might think that pilates is the same as yoga but they are extremely different. Yoga is considered to be thousands of years old from the east whereas pilates was created in the early 20thcentury by Joseph Pilates who is a german professional boxer, bodybuilder, gymnast and generally a very accomplished sports person.
Joseph believes in rebalancing, realigning the body to achieve our best possible well-being and also improve any other performance in sports. Pilates is a very good complementary exercise type for any other sports activity that you might do.
Also pilates is one of the ultimate forms of exercise for staying well and maintaining a well balanced mind and body functioning. Similar to yoga the pilates exercises are controlled exercises performed with awareness of each muscle part of the body. Pilates is realy not about making fast, big, huge weighted movements but more about the slow, steady movements and precision.
This type of exercising is great for people who try to recover from an injury and is also great if you want to do this befor sports or after sports to help work on your mobility and get your muscles ready for exercising.
A lot of pilates exercises are done in a standing position or on a mat which I another similarity of yoga and pilates. Also additional to the mat-based exercises pilates is practiced without using any real equipment except of small equipment like bands or balls.
Of course the most modern type of pilates is practiced on/with a pilates reformer machine but this is not always necessary.
Other than in the most high intensity workouts in pilates the concentration is key. So you must maintain concentration on your body, taking the instructions and slowly with awareness focusing on how your body is moving, how and where you feel each muscle.
Source: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/everything-you-want-to-know-about-pilates
