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The reformer is a Pilates machine that is based resistance training. The system of the Reformer is made up of springs, loops, a gliding carriage and a bar, which work on both body and mind. The resistance is created by the combination of springs and ones own body weight. When training the carriage, body, arms and legs are in movement, which challenges and improves a person’s strength, suppleness, balance, coordination and concentration.

 

There are over 3,000 exercises that can be carried out on the Reformer, which gives an intense work out of the entire body. Reformer training is known for creating elongated, strong, supple muscles as well as an athletic figure. The exercises are done lying on the back, front, on the knees as well as sitting and standing depending on the level of the training.  The Reformer is used for both group classes as well as one on one private session.

 

The Pilates Method shapes bodies as it makes them fitter and stronger and more attractive.  It slims the muscles and makes them more compact, developing sleekness rather than bulk.  It turns the abdomen and lower back and hips into a firm central support for a newly supple and graceful body.

 

HISTORY OF PILATES:

Joseph H. Pilates was born in 1883 in Mönchengladbach, Germany. Pilates was a sickly child and suffered from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever, and he dedicated his entire life to improving his physical strength. Besides skiing frequently, he began studying body-building, yoga and gymnastics.

 

Pilates believed that the "modern" life-style, bad posture, and inefficient breathing were the causes of poor health. He ultimately devised a series of exercises and training-techniques and engineered all the equipment, specifications, and tuning required to teach his methods properly.

Pilates was originally a gymnast, diver, and bodybuilder, but when he moved to England in 1912, he earned a living as a professional boxer, circus-performer, and self-defense trainer at police schools and Scotland Yard. Nevertheless, the British authorities interned him during World War I along with other German citizens in an internment camp on the Isle of Man. During this involuntary break, he began to intensively develop his concept of an integrated, comprehensive system of physical exercise, which he himself called "Contrology." It is told that these inmates survived the 1918 flu pandemic due to their good physical shape.

After the war (WWI), he returned to Germany and collaborated with important experts in dance and physical exercise such as Rudolf Laban. In Hamburg, he also trained police officers. When he was pressured to train members of the German army, he left his native country, disappointed with its political and social conditions, and emigrated to the United States.

In 1925, Pilates migrated to the United States. On the ship to America, he met his future wife Clara. The couple founded a studio in New York City and directly taught and supervised their students well into the 1960s. His method, which he and Clara originally called "Contrology," related to encouraging the use of the mind to control muscles. It focuses attention on core postural muscles that help keep the human body balanced and provide support for the spine. Joe's method of exercises teach awareness of breath and of alignment of the spine, and strengthen the deep torso and abdominal muscles.

 

PRINCIPLES OF PILATES:

Principle 1: Centering 
In Pilates, all movements originate from the center of the body, which is located in the pelvis, just bellow the navel (inside). Anatomically, our center connects several large muscle groups and refers to the musculature located deep within the abdominal area. From our center we support our spine and major organs, strengthen the back and improve alignment and posture. With a properly developed center we are less vulnerable to fatigue and lower-back pain. 

Visualize your center as a sphere. As you contract the muscles in this area, imagine the sphere shrinking in size—a three-dimensional movement. During Pilates exercises you want to maintain this contraction without holding your breath. 

Principle 2: Control 
Control is essential to the quality of every movement. The underlying assumption is that exercise motions and movements performed without control can lead to injury, but exercises performed with control produce positive results. 

Principle 3: Concentration 
The mind-body connection is at the very core of Pilates, and the key to coordinating mind and body is concentration. In this discipline, the focus is on careful, precise and slow foundation work. Before you perform or teach a movement, organize your thoughts and cues to encourage full-body awareness. During each movement, stay aware, not only of the moving body part, but also of what the rest of the body is doing. 

Principle 4: Precision 
Movement precision builds on concentration. Realize that every movement has a purpose and every cue or instruction is important to the success of the movement. 

Principle 5: Breathing 
Pilates, like yoga, calls for complete, thorough and purposeful inhalation and exhalation. But in Pilates, unlike in yoga, inhalation is through the nose and exhalation through the mouth. Conscious breathing and specific breathing patterns assist movement by focusing the attention and direction of the body and by delivering oxygen to the muscles being used. Full breathing also assist in removing non-beneficial chemicals that may be stored in the muscles.

Visualize the capacity of the rib cage expanding three-dimensionally with each breath. In three-dimensional breathing, the ribs expand forward, sideways and backward during each inhalation. Pilates reminded practitioners to fill (their) lungs from the bottom and empty them from the top. 

Principle 6: Flowing Movement 
Dynamic fluid movement makes Pilates different from other exercise techniques. Smoothness and evenly flowing movement go hand in hand, assisting the connections (or transitions) between movements. An exercise should have a specific place where it begins and ends, with a seamless middle of precise motion emphasizing grace and control. Don't allow jerky, quick or under movements.