Stretch Pilates

WHY STRETCH

Regular stretching provides many benefits. It releases muscle tension, brings relief to painful joints, improves flexibility and reduces injury. But if you don’t enjoy stretching, try Pilates. The eccentric exercise programme — focused on core strength  — may just bring back the joy of stretching for you.

In a 1962 interview with American journalist Robert Wernick, Joseph Pilates (1883 – 1967) said he discovered the benefits of stretching when he was interned at Knockaloe on the Isle of Man in World War I (1914 – 1918.)

Pilates was a German, living in Great Britain at the time. He was interned due to strong anti-German sentiment during the war. He spent three-and-half years as a prisoner-of-war on the Isle of Man, off the coast of Great Britain and Ireland.

IT WAS THE CATS

“It was the cats which did it,” Pilates told Wernick. The interview was published in Sports Illustrated.

Pilates recounted life at Knockaloe. The prisoners were becoming weaker by the day, and were in low spirits. In contrast, the cats though “skin and bones” like the fellow prisoners were “lithe and springy.”

It made him wondered: “Why were the cats in such good shape, so bright-eyed, while the humans were growing every day paler, weaker, apathetic creatures ready to give up if they caught a cold or fell down and sprained an ankle?”

Pilates said the answer came to him that the cats were always stretching:

“When they have nothing else to do, (they were) stretching their legs out, stretching, keeping their muscles limber, alive,” he said. Pilates discovered stretching not only improves your health, but also puts you in a better state of mind.

SPRINGS AS RESISTANCE

Pilates began to work on “an orderly series of exercises” to stretch “all human muscles.” He tried the exercises on fellow prisoners at Knockaloe. For injured men who could not get out of bed, he invented the reformer, a moving bed made of springs. The springs were believed to have come from bed mattresses.

Today, the Pilates reformer is the most iconic equipment for core training, and the use of springs as resistance is a distinctive characteristic of Pilates exercise.

The springs — as they are stretchable — not only stretch the muscle, but also allow the muscle to lengthen and work in a bigger range of motion. Exercises which contract the muscles in length are known as eccentric training. So if you have chronically tight muscles, that don’t seem to improve with static stretching, try Pilates. Exercising with springs can help stretch and strengthen the muscles eccentrically, so that they don’t stay tight and short.

WHY CORE MUSCLES

The concept of “core exercise” did not exist until the 1980s. You would not find the words, “core exercise” or “core muscles” mentioned in earlier literature or text. Yet before the world knew about the existence of core muscles, Joseph Pilates was espousing the importance of abdominal muscles. In the 1962 interview, he said:

“By exercising your stomach muscles, you wring out the body, you don’t catch colds, you don’t get cancer, you don’t get hernias. Do animals get hernias? Do animals go on diets?”

“Look at a cat. Look at any animal. The only animal that doesn’t hold its stomach in is the pig.” Pilates said.

The technique of drawing the stomach in —  as modern research shows — is how you would activate core muscles, and make them work. Pilates did not mention the word “core,” but many of the core exercises practiced today are Pilates exercises. 

Using core muscles to centre and control a stretch, provide a reference point for the stretch, so that the joint being stretched always stays in alignment with the next joint and the trunk. A core-focused stretch improves body alignment and joint stability.

STOMACH CHALLENGE

In an anecdote on the importance of abdominal muscles, Robert Wernick wrote Joseph Pilates would greet all new students, including him with a challenge to step on his stomach. 

“Step on me,” the 80-year old Pilates asked Wernick. He hesitated.

“Don’t be afraid,” Pilates said.

Gingerly, he put one foot on Pilates’ belly and one foot on his chest.

“You see,” Pilates said. “It is easy.”

Robert Wernick met and interviewed many famous personalities in an illustrious career spanning 50 years. But he kept the picture of himself standing on the stomach of Joseph Pilates. Writer Harry Kollatz Jr. remembered seeing the picture in his apartment in 1995. He continued to practice Pilates throughout his life.

JOY OF STRETCHING

A prisoner-of-war camp is an unlikely birthplace of Pilates, an exercise phenomenon which we are still discovering the benefits. Yet it was the experiences of war and imprisonment that Joseph Pilates found the benefits of stretching. Stretching helped the body cope and overcome extreme physical and mental stress. The cats became the inspiration for the exercise.

If you don’t enjoy stretching, Joseph Pilates invented the reformer and other equipment to make stretching easier. Stretch and strengthen your muscles eccentrically with the help of springs. Become more flexible and improve your core strength and alignment.

Start today. Select from below the programme that best suits you: