A blog about Pilates and fitness

This week, an influential Pilates teacher trainer shared a video on her social media about how she had how she woke up in pain from her osteoarthritis that morning, but after Pilates was pain-free for the rest of the day. She eulogised (quite rightly) that motion is lotion and movement is medicine.  However, she also said something that bothered me. When she was a teenager she was a competitive sprinter, and as an adult she taught aerobics for many years. This, she said, had led her to develop terrible osteoarthritis in her hips, knees and hands. She blames herself for her arthritis. Arthritis* is the word used to describe joint pain and stiffness. Osteoarthritis is the most common form, and it can happen when the protective cartilage on the ends of your bones breaks down.  Osteoarthritis is often colloquially known as, "wear and tear" arthritis, to distinguish it from other types; and it is tempting to believe that you can wear your joints out by subjecting them to impac...

  There are many benefits to exercise, including strength, coordination, flexibility, focus, power, endurance, pain threshold, cardiovascular health, and body composition (eg ratio of muscle to fat). While most exercise regimes will help with all of these to a certain extent, each method has its own focus. For example, if your primary goal is to build muscle (hypertrophy), then the best method is weight training. When it comes to growing in size, your muscles don't mind how well you lift weights - they care that you make them lift a heavy enough weight enough times to tire them out. Weight training will also help with other fitness benefits, but it is the king of hypertrophy. Pilates, however, is the king of control. The other fitness elements all improve when you practise Pilates, but the main goal is to move your body effectively and efficiently. These skills transfer over to make you more effective and efficient at weightlifting, running, gymnastics or any other movement activit...