Men, Pilates is Not 'Just a Woman's Workout'
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For those who are looking for an alternative to weight lifting Pilates is a great option. Many famous male actors & athletes like Hugh Grant & Curt Shilling & Tiger Woods have discovered its great effectiveness. It can be an intense workout since the movements are slow, controlled, and deliberate.
Since I've done Pilates, I'm much better looking and 4 feet taller," says Rich Beem, winner of the 2002 PGA Championship. "Seriously, I'm now so stretched out and have such great posture that I look and feel like a different person."
Curt Shilling says, “The first three weeks I was really disappointed. I wasn’t sweating, I wasn’t winded which is what I associated with real exercise. Then in the fourth week I began to understand… the idea of working from your center. By the third month I was more powerful & more flexible than ever before & I lost 15 pounds.”
Pilates was developed by Joseph H. Pilates who was born in Germany in 1880. Pilates had a lifelong interest in body conditioning being an accomplished skier, diver, gymnast, boxer and martial artist. Components of these disciplines can be seen in different Pilates exercises. While interned in England during World War I for his German citizenship, Joseph became a nurse. During this time, he designed exercise apparatus for immobilized patients by attaching springs to hospital beds.
This system formed the foundation for his style of body conditioning and specialized exercise apparatus, which he brought to New York City when he opened the first Pilates Studio in 1926. There Joseph & his wife Clara, taught his method (then called “Contrology”) to many local dancers & actors who used it to improve their strength & maintain their flexibility. He believed completely in his method, prescribing it to his students well into his eighties.
“You will feel better in ten sessions, look better in 20 sessions, and have a completely new body in 30 sessions." - Joseph H. Pilates
So guys, what are you waiting for?
Don
7:15 am on Thursday, February 16, 2012
I have been doing Pilates for 5-6 years now with my wife. It is a very good system. One thing that is true about it, none of the individual exercises are very hard. My opinion is that it is the overall effect of all the exercises combined. There has never been a workout doing this where you don't feel it. I have done this after doing extremely intense other activities, and Pilates is a healing system. All the pain/problems were fixed and less pain the next day. I say try it, but be a gentleman. These ladies aren't into neaderthalism at all.
Connie F Lafond
8:33 am on Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thanks for the comment, Don. Be fun to offer a couples class.
Don
8:56 am on Thursday, February 16, 2012
It would be interesting and a definite opportunity. I am the only guy out of around 20-30 ladies and that has been the case for a few years. Pilates is a mysterious as it is intense. The most interesting aspect is how the same point, 1 inch below the belly button, is constantly pulled in during Pilates and is the same point a martial artist would use to focus energy inwards/outwards. Pilates is outwards only, yet that 1 little part of the body has so much to do with everything. Thanks Connie, as you can tell Pilates is very interesting to me.