WHY PILATES?
STRESS RELIEF - PAIN REDUCTION - INJURY PREVENTION
Offering a refreshing alternative to the typical gym workout, Pilates can transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs, while also providing a successful tool for stress relief, pain reduction, and injury prevention. Additionally, Pilates may keep you healthy. According to a 2013 study at Duke University Medical Center, there is growing evidence to support that mindful exercise, such as Pilates, reduces cardiovascular health risk factors and improves mood state, making it an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.
Pilates instruction at Bodytonic emphasizes blending strength, mobility, and flexibility training while focusing on precise skeletal alignment, muscular contractions, and breathing patterns. Our classes focus on the quality of movement (AKA technique) rather than the number of repetitions performed or weights lifted. During your classes at Bodytonic, you will work every major muscle group, with particular emphasis given to the abdominal, back, hip girdle, and shoulder girdle muscles. This fusion provides a refreshing, energizing, and balancing workout that improves musculoskeletal balance, joint health, athletic performance, injury prevention, and stress and pain reduction.
A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW OF PILATES
Fitness innovator Joseph H. Pilates (1881-1967) first developed an interest in exercise techniques from his determination to strengthen his body after growing up as a sickly child in Germany. He created the Pilates exercise system in the 1920s and opened his first studio in New York City in 1926. Some of the first people he treated were soldiers returning from war and dancers such as Martha Graham and George Balanchine. Other dancers and athletes were quickly drawn to Pilates to heal their aches and pains and recover from injuries. In the past few decades, Pilates has become the fastest-growing exercise modality around the world.