If you google search “Pilates”, you will find images of people doing something that looks like some odd yoga. Pilates is often referred to in passing in popular media, but it is rarely shown. Pilates is not just what you call these exercises, but a name. The exercise techniques were named after their creator, Joseph Hubertus Pilates. Joseph pioneered what he originally called “Contrology” in a World War I internment camp, using minimal equipment, and encouraging the mind to control the muscles.

Pilates (the exercise) today has only taken what Pilates (the man) created and evolved it into a widely available form of low impact exercise that seeks to target what practitioners call “The five essentials”: breath, cervical alignment, rib and scapular stabilization, pelvic mobility, and utilization of the transversus abdominis, or in simpler terms, strengthen the muscles that stabilize the body. Practitioners do this through a collection of around 50 exercises, and instructors encourage control through each repetition.

Pilates can be performed on mats, or on a larger device that was coined by it’s creator as an “Apparatus”, referred to today as reformers. Mat Pilates is based on practitioners sitting or lying on the floor and using their bodyweight as the main resistance, with exercise balls, rings, and foam rollers used for certain moves. While one might conflate this with yoga, the key difference is that in yoga, participants hold poses for a time, and in Pilates, participants move their bodies much more, sometimes even continuously.

Reformers, on the more complicated end of the practice, are box-like structures that use springs as the main form of resistance, applied to a sliding platform that practitioners lie, sit, or stand on. Using a wide range of other tools with the reformer, practitioners can target an even wider range of muscle groups while targeting the aforementioned five essentials.

A common misconception with Pilates is that it is merely a form of physical therapy, or even that it is a lesser form of exercise when compared to traditional resistance training. While Pilates-style training is often used in physical therapy clinics, Joseph Pilates himself stated in his book on the practice that when performed properly and at sufficient intensity, Pilates can and should be a full workout.

The JCC has a wide range of Pilates classes, all taught by experienced and qualified instructors. You can find the schedule on our website, or on the Mindbody app.