About Pilates

Pilates is a full body, low impact workout.  It is the perfect balance of strengthening and stretching- no area is ever over or under worked. Natalie teaches Pilates for individuals, helping each person to achieve specifically what their body needs. Pilates is wonderful for everyone, whether you are active or sedentary there are benefits for all. It is a great way to help alleviate back and joint pain, gain flexibility, and increase your abdominal strength and stability. Pilates lengthens and tones muscles instead of bulking up and is also is very beneficial to help correct posture. 

Guiding Principles of Pilates

Control
Pilates is the art of controlling your body’s movements with your mind.  One does not simply move for movements’ sake but rather with intention and purpose.  It isn’t about the intensity of the movement, but instead the ability to move with quality by activating correct muscles in the right sequence.  Good technique brings about safe, effective results.

Centering
Pilates works on building balance and symmetry throughout the body, building correct alignment to help your posture.  

Concentration
Pilates is a mind/body workout that takes a great deal of focus to execute properly.

Precision
Initiate from the correct areas for each exercise to maintain a high quality Pilates workout.  Doing this will keep the body injury-free and you will see safe progressions in your routine.

Breath
A correct breathing pattern increases awareness, circulation, and oxygenates the blood.  It is important to emphasis breathing with movement and not to hold your breath!  Lateral costal breathing, wide and full out through the ribs, requires breathing in on the point of effort, and out on the return of exhalation.  

Flow
Quality of movement is linked with control.  Movement efficiency is a balance between muscle relaxation and muscle contraction.  Concentrate on flow during each exercise but also as you put together all of the exercises in the system.  

Pilates, as defined by Joseph Pilates, “is the complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit.  It develops the body uniformly, corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, invigorates the mind, and elevates the spirit.  Pilates is designed to give you suppleness, natural grace, and skill that will be unmistakably reflected in the way you walk, in the way you play, and in the way you work.  You will develop muscular power with corresponding endurance, ability to perform arduous duties, to play strenuous games, to walk, run or travel for long distances without undue body fatigue or mental strain.” – Return to Life Through Contrology