Magazine: Yoga Journal
Issue: November/December 1994
Author: Linda Sparrowe Title:

Amazing Mind-Body Machines

For 75 years the Pilates method has helped dancers and athletes heal injuries. Now its high-tech approach is the latest thing in whole body workouts.

Lying on a table, cushioned by the firm padding underneath me and lulled by gentle background music, I allow my breath to rhythmically rise and fall as I relax deeper and deeper into the mat. My instructor, Madeline Black, stands nearby, patiently waiting until I finish imprinting. I visualize my spine dropping into the mat, one vertebra at a time, the weight of the bones drawing down as though into a bed of soft mud. When my entire spine feels grounded, I open my eyes. Im ready to begin the first day of my Pilates program.

Ive been fascinated by Pilates (Puh-LAH-tees)a unique method of resistance control exercise designed to strengthen and stretch muscles, open up the joints, and release tensionsever since my days as a dancer, when I had known it only as a rehabilitation tool. These days, however, its hot with the I-used-to-do-aerobics-but-now-it-hurts-too-much baby boomers as a form of gentle whole-body conditioning that uses an odd assortment of machines, props, and visualizations to produce a lean, lithe, and optimally functional body. Studios are cropping up all over California, New York, Colorado, and New Mexico. Its curious blend of yoga, dance, Feldenkrais, the Alexander technique, and rehabilitation piqued my interest, and I eagerly signed on for a six-week stint to see what this new age workout craze was all about.

Madeline Black, a professional dancer, Pilates and fitness trainer, and owner of A Body of Work in San Francisco, California, agreed to work with me. Susan Branum, a dancer, Iyengar yoga teacher, Pilates trainer, and owner of Back Room Yoga Studio, also agreed to facilitate some sessions.

The first thing I learned is that Pilates is not a new age phenomenon at allin fact, its been around for 75 years. Its founder, Joseph Pilates, was born in 1880 in Germany and grew up plagued by rickets, asthma, and rheumatic fever. Determined to overcome his various afflictions, Joe studied yoga, Zen meditation, and the rigorous exercise regimens of the ancient Greeks and Romans. By the time he reached 14, his yoga and body-building efforts had paid off: He had gained enough strength to become an accomplished skin diver, skier, and gymnast.

In 1912, Joe went to England, where he became a boxer, worked as a circus performer, and trained detectives in self defense. At the outbreak of World War I, he and other German nationals were interned as enemy aliens. While in the camp, Joe taught his fellow prisoners a series of exercises that combined physical fitness with breath control and mental acuity, promising they would emerge stronger than they had been prior to internment. Not only did he succeed, but none of his charges succumbed to the deadly influenza epidemic that swept England, killing thousands of people.

Joe spent the latter part of the war on the Isle of Man, working as an orderly in a hospital where he witnessed people disabled from wartime diseases and incarceration. It bothered him to see so many patients completely immobilized, so he began moving their arms and legs gently, systematically, using his own body to bear the weight. Doctors noticed the patients were improving faster, and allowed Joe to continue experimenting. Using springs from the old-fashioned hospital beds, he devised special machines that would allow patients to move on their own. The springs, Joe believed, would provide progressive resistance, similar to ones own muscle activity, and bear the weight at the same time to enable the muscles to heal.

After the war, Joe returned to Germany where he continued his physical fitness training programs. By the mid-1920s, Joes teaching caught the eye of the German government, who insisted he train the New German Army. It was clearly time to leave.

Joe immigrated to America in 1926. On the boat over, he met Clara, who soon became his wife. Their newly established Pilates studio in New York City caught the attention of such dance legends as George Ballanchine, Hanya Holm, and Martha Graham, who sent their students to them to repair knees, backs, joints, and muscle pulls.

One such dancer was Ron Fletcher who, in 1946, was one of the few male modern dancers studying with Martha Graham. Wracked with pain from a severe knee injury, Fletcher reluctantly agreed to go to the Pilates studio. As Fletcher tells the story, he hobbled up several flights of stairs in the creepy old buildingno one dared use the dilapidated elevatorand entered Joe and Claras tiny studio, where he found an odd little man, bare-chested, in a skimpy blue swimsuit, smoking a cigar and directing an injured dancer on the weirdest, most medieval-looking contraption hed ever seen. Clara, Joes wife, was decked out in her white nurses uniform with oxfords on her feet. Fletcher was not at all convinced he wanted to stick around. But surgery was the only other option. He stayed. Joe put him on a machine, and he began to work through the legs and feet without ever putting weight on the injured knee. It was truly amazing! Fletcher remembers. It didnt take many sessions before his knee healed and he was dancing again.

Fletcher was so taken by Joe and Claras work that he continued to work with them for another 20 years. Joe was moody and gruff, but brilliant, Fletcher told me, but it was Clara who taught me to understand the work, to teach it from the point of view of mind-breath-body-spirit. After retiring from dance, Fletcher opened up a Pilates studio in Beverly Hills and has been teaching and giving workshops ever since. Several other dancers also became Joes protgs and manynow in their 70s and 80sare still teaching today. Each one, it seems, brings his or her own approach to Joes original methods.

The Original Pilates Method

The system of conditioning Joseph Pilates originally created combines intense mental conditioning with physical training to teach people to work from the inside out. The goal is to produce a lean, lithe physique, proper body alignment, and balance. Its not about aerobic exercise or bulky muscles. In fact, Ron Fletcher is firm when he reminds me that Pilates is not about exercise at all. Its about movement, about how to dance in your body, how to use your muscles in a controlled way so they work for you in harmony with the breath. Pilates strengthens the body through movement so that the muscles you work will become muscles that work for you in everyday activities.

Joe Pilates always felt he was 50 years ahead of his time. He theorized that imbalances in the body and habitual patterns of movement caused injuries. He observed that when there was a weak or misaligned area in the body, a person tended to overcompensate or overdevelop another area. Therefore it was critical not only to correct the misalignment but to reeducate the body so that injuries didnt repeat themselves.

He believed that the quality of the movement was essential to good training. Precision, he believed, was much more important than repetitions. Precision engages your mind, he used to say, and the mind is essential to controlling movement. By bringing awareness and breath to the movement patterns, clients could work toward changing those patterns structurally. It was critical, Joe felt, never to give the exerciser time to lose focusmovements should be continuous, gently flowing.

The key to the Pilates method, according to Madeline Black, is pelvic stabilization and abdominal control. Whether youre performing the sequences on a floor mat or on one of the many Pilates machines, the workout is designed to stabilize your torso and develop two primary control centers: the lower and deeper abdominals, and the mid-back muscles. All movements are initiated from the control centers, which allows you to strengthen the support muscles deep within your body that would not normally get much activity in a weight-bearing exercise. By stabilizing the trunk, you allow the extremities to move freely from a stable spine, increasing flexibility and strength at the same time. Joe invented several pieces of equipment to help his clients increase their range of motion, correct misalignments and weight distribution, control muscles, and monitor their energy output. The Universal Reformer is the main apparatus most trainers use.

The Universal Reformer, Joes original invention, is a bedlike platform with a sliding carriage attached to a number of springs that offer gentle resistance. You control the sliding movement of the carriage by pushing or pulling with your feet or hands against a padded bar or canvas straps attached to pulley cords. Movements are done supine, kneeling, sitting, or standing. The springs produce a stretching and contracting action (called an eccentric contraction) similar to the way your muscles work and are simple to adjust to provide the right amount of tension for the muscle youre working. The emphasis is not on maximum resistance; in fact, you never want to feel that youre straining to perform any sequenceit should be done in a continuous, relaxed manner. The equipment itself provides the resistance, depending on how many springs you use to connect the platform to the frame, but the individual controls the movement. The Reformer is excellent for working the iliopsoas muscle and strengthening muscles around hypermobile joints.

During my sessions with Madeline and Susan, I perform many different moves on the Reformer, working my arms, legs, abdominals, feet, shoulders, and everything else in between. Once again, its critical, Susan reminds me, to keep the control centers stabilized and the abdominals engaged, lengthening from the pubic bone up through the navel. This navel-to-spine awareness is a Pilates signature action. Essentially, it engages both muscle and bone. The muscle action comes as you pull the abdominals inward toward the spine (a scooping of the abdominal wall); the bone action initiates from the pelvis. The pelvis must be in neutral, the tailbone released into the mat, to give the sense of lengthening between the pubic bone and the navel.

I begin by lying supine on the padded carriage, my legs outstretched and my feet in parallel position standing on the bar. I take in a deep breath and, on the exhale, I push my heels against the bar to move the carriage away from it. Try again, Madeline instructs, youre contracting your gluteals. How could she possibly see that tiny move? I can tell, she explains, because that move engages your quadriceps. The action must come from your hamstrings. She goes on to say that by keeping the full front of the ankles soft, heels relaxed, and pelvis stationary, you learn to lift from your center, from your torso, and from the tops of the backs of the legs. This elongates the front of the thigh muscle (a muscle usually overdeveloped and contracted in most people) so that your leg is uniformfront and backand much more functional. I perform just eight reps of this sequence, slowly, rhythmically exhaling as I push against the bar.

Joe invented several other pieces of equipment. The Wunda Chair was originally designed for someone who didnt have enough space for a Reformer and is used to educate the muscles in a similar fashion. Its an odd-looking chair, without a back, that has adjustable poles so you can suspend your body weight, and foot bars that move up and down with spring resistance. Its excellent for developing control, strength, and range of motion in the hip and knee joints and helps correct misalignment in the ankles, feet, and knees. The Trapeze Table (or Cadillac, as it is often called) is another odd-looking piece of equipmenta table with four posts (similar to a four-poster bed) to which springs, trapezes, bars, and straps are attached and suspended. This apparatus is beneficial for people with back injuries as well as for more advanced Pilates practitioners who wish to perform more difficult sequences. There are also half barrels (or what is called the Spine Corrector); the Magic Circle that works the inner thighs and arms; and the Ped-O-Pole, which is a metal cross with two hanging springs thats particularly helpful in relieving neck and upper back stress when working the trapezius muscles and stretching the pectorals.

Pilates as Rehabilitation

Pilates-based techniques are effective tools for rehabilitation. Trainers in all major sports make use of them for strains, sprains, stress fractures, and spine problems. Research indicates that people should train the way that they perform, so the idea with Pilates is that you are doing functional movements, movements similar to what youre doing in your daily activities. Pilates is particularly effective, explains Elizabeth Larkam, coordinator of dance medicine rehabilitation at St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, because it offers a closed kinetic chain form of rehabilitation. A closed kinetic chain means that a weight-bearing surface of the body (the sole of your foot, the palm of your hand) is in contact with a surface fixed in space. In other words, when my feet were standing on the padded bar of the Reformer, that was an example of a closed kinetic chain. An open kinetic chain is when the foot or hand is free to move in space and is not in contact with any surface fixed in space. An example of an open kinetic activity would be one in which leg movements were performed using weights strapped to your ankles. A closed kinetic chain is a much more supportive form of exercise, says Larkham, because it allows for a more balanced use of the muscles. Performing knee extensions, for example, in an open chain can overwork the quadriceps; placing the sole of the foot in contact with a stationary surface to close the kinetic chain would tend to engage the hamstrings in conjunction with the other legs muscles, strengthening the entire functional chain. In the case of injury, Pilates, because it uses progressive spring resistance training and is isotonic, can support movements around an injured area, offering support and an opportunity to rebalance the musculature. Because the apparatus can be easily adjusted and the exercises modified, Larkam continues, Pilates works well for someone who is injuredeven someone in a cast. Amputees, people with neurological disorders, as well as general orthopedic patients have all benefited from Pilates training.

As a trainer, Madeline Black likes working with Pilates because it allows her to watch for patterns of movement and to teach the individual to shift and change those patterns that are causing pain. For example, she says, If someone has a certain habit of gripping her jaw when shes doing a heel raise, you can bring that awareness to the person and she can change the way she moves. Susan Branum agrees. She often redirects someones leg alignment on the Reformer and helps him to work the leg in, say, a more neutral position. After a while, his leg bones will shift and his hips wont hurt anymore.

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Pilates as Conditioning

While Pilates continues to be beneficial for rehabilitation, its mass appeal is as a system of whole-body conditioning. As Carola Trier, another Pilates elder, explains, The original Pilates was pure gymphysical body building with concentration, breathing, relaxation. Joes notion was to build a conditioned, functional body. It didnt matter to him if you were a dancer, a gymnast, a bicyclist, or whatever. It was his job to help you function as efficiently and as strongly as possible. Pilates trainers, in fact, often create sports-specific programs. For example, bicyclists who suffer from back problems, aggravated by their hunched-over riding style, often benefit from strengthening their back extensor muscles. Rock climbers can work on foot and toe strengthening and flexibility. Runners and football or soccer players, whose activities tend to jar and compact the body, benefit from muscle lengthening and flexibility, as well as increasing their range of muscle motion. Unlike weight training, which seeks to isolate and strengthen one set of muscles at a time, Pilates builds kinesthetic awareness. It works through movement so that the strength of the muscles works in relationship to their function.

The difficulty of using Pilates as a conditioning tool is that the initial use of the apparatus requires skilled supervision. In order to get maximum benefit from the Reformer, for example, its imperative that you perform the movements in a carefully controlled, rhythmic, and balanced manner. A Pilates instructor is trained to pay attention to proper alignment and to give feedback as she observes your bodys movements. Even the mat work requires learning proper breathing techniques and positioning. Like most body conditioning work, however, once youve worked with a trainer and have garnered a good working knowledge of the techniques, there are many sequences you can perform on your own.

Pilates Comes of Age

What began in the 1920s as a series of rehabilitative and conditioning exercises that focused almost exclusively on the alignment of muscles and bones has evolved into a complex rehabilitation and conditioning program that borrows heavily from other body therapy techniques, such as Bonnie Bainbridge Cohens body-mind centering work, the Feldenkrais method, the Alexander technique, rolfing, yoga, and Aston patterning. Much of the more recent use of visualization imagery and tactile cuing, for example, comes from Bainbridge Cohen, Feldenkrais, and Alexander. Rolfing lends hands-on deep tissue work to the rehabilitative movements in Pilates, and yoga brings its signature focus on the integration of the breath with movement and body awareness.

Two primary schools of thought emerge in this evolutionary process of Pilates. The first group, of which all the first-generation Pilates teachers are a part, believes many of these additions are useful aids for teachers to help students get the full benefit of Pilates, to better understand the mind-body connection necessary to perform the movements correctly. The second group sees Pilates as a way of enhancing their own bodywork techniques, whether it be yoga, rolfing, massage therapy, or body-mind centering work.

Just about everyone I spoke with credits Eve Gentry, a Pilates master who, up until her recent death at age 84, taught corrective exercise in Santa Fe, New Mexico, incorporating the most useful additions to Joseph Pilates work. Gentry developed a series of pre-Pilates sequencesmicromoves that teach people how to initiate movement from their central nervous systemto help them learn to articulate their spines, breathe properly, and open up their joints. Many Pilates trainers use the pre-Pilates warmup to prepare their clients for further work on the apparatus. Gentrys biggest contribution was teaching what she called spinal breathing or imprinting, which she felt is essential to using the abdominals properly and to keeping knees, lower back, and hips in correct alignment. Imprinting is a visualization of the anterior, posterior or lateral movement of the vertebrae. Instead of focusing on the muscles, particularly the abdominals, Gentrys work switches the focus to the vertebrae. You learn to anchor your bodyan essential aspect of Pilates workwithout gripping or tightening the abdominals, the gluteals, or the hip sockets.

After imprinting, the first sequence I work on in each of my sessions with Madeline and Susan is the Roll-Back, an exercise Gentry devised to help students release tension in the cervical area and further articulate the spine. I sit on the Cadillac, facing a trapeze bar, about eye level, that is connected to springs. Holding onto the bar, I first perform the roll-down by relaxing my neck and shoulders and tucking my tailbone under. Pulling my navel toward my spine, I slowly roll down into the mat, one vertebra at a time, exhaling on the effort. The motion is a tucking, scooping, and lengthening one, a release not a stretch. As Madeline reminds me, its important not to jam the anterior part of the spine onto itself. Its equally important, she continues, to keep the thighs and the gluteals soft and the feet relaxed against the posts. The action is in the spine and the abdominals, not in the quadriceps. Im curling but trying to get space in between the vertebrae at the same time.

From a supine position, still holding onto the trapeze bar, I begin a slow scooped roll-up. As I roll up, I allow my spine to curve around a huge, imaginary ball, keeping the front of the spine elongated as well as the back, creating space between the vertebrae. Madeline sits behind me, with her hands gently pressing each side of my spine, reminding me to exhale and drop each vertebra back against her hands as I roll up. The movement is slow but continuous, strenuous but relaxing at the same time. Although Im holding onto the bar, its not really offering me much help. As Madeline explains, The spring acts more as a counterbalance, helping to keep the movement smooth. If you rely too heavily on it as you roll down, youd probably fall over. We do the move several more times before graduating to the Reformer.

Gentry also introduced the importance of posture into the Pilates method. Similar to the Alexander technique, Gentrys pre-Pilates postural work concentrates on the correct alignment of the head. Gentry saw the body as a combination of five verticalsthe spine, two arms and two legs and five horizontalshead, shoulder girdle, ribs, knees, and ankles. The spine hangs from the base of the neck and rests at the top of the sacrum or pelvis. The two arms hang from the shoulders and the legs hang from the hips. The horizontals never hold; they float. Theyre like a bridge or a building, Gentry saysthe more rigid its built, the more apt it is to crack. The head floats; the sternum should be directly over the navel which is over your pubic bone which is directly over your ankles.

Pilates and Other Bodywork

Pilates has been enhanced by and brings a new focus to many other types of body therapies. Lynne Uretsky, certified Pilates trainer on staff at A Body of Work in San Francisco, is also an advanced yoga student and a practitioner of Bainbridge Cohens body-mind centering. Uretsky discovered Pilates and instantly saw a connection between the two systems. Pilates is intelligent movement. It really helped me a lot with my own work. I was deep in the waters of body-mind centering, and Pilates gave me grounding and structure. Pilates also offered her a muscle-bone approach in working with clients who may have trouble understanding the more ethereal qualities of organ or gland work. She also uses body-mind centering imagery with her Pilates clients, helping them to release through certain organs. For some, Uretsky explains, it works to say, Let your heart fall back into your spine, or visualize your ovaries releasing into the mat. To Uretsky, its knowing how to speak the language of the individual youre working on.

Elizabeth Larkam agrees that Pilates and body-mind centering can work hand in hand. In fact, she sees this more evolved Pilates as a bridge that accesses the muscular/skeletal system while bringing awareness to the more subtle organs and fluids within the body. It shifts our consciousness to the next level of awareness through a very down-to-earth, physical series of movements.

Pilates and Yoga

The connection Pilates has with yoga becomes apparent the first time Madeline asks me to breathe into my hamstrings. Pilates emphasizes breath control and body awareness in every movement sequence. Susan feels that while some yoga instructors only talk about the importance of the breath in the asanas, in Pilates proper breathing is essential. We are taught to exhale with the movement, and we use the breath to stay present in the movement itself. Madeline and Susan use verbal cues and hands-on techniques to guide my breathing in many of the more difficult, advanced moves. In Pilates, there are two types of breathing: deep breathing and percussive breathing. Deep breathing is an integral part of most of the sequences and helps the student keep the control centers stabilized; percussive breathing is sometimes called for to increase your oxygen intake or to heighten your awareness of the breath. The forced outbreath of the percussives comes from the transverse abdominus, the deepest abdominal muscles, and helps, along with the internal and external obliques, to develop a deep abdominal center.

Judith Lasater, a well-known Iyengar yoga teacher, observed Branum demonstrating a variety of Pilates moves on the Reformer and the Cadillac. She immediately saw a number of similarities between the two systems. First, she noticed, both methods emphasize stretching as well as strengthening of muscles. And, although Pilates relies on the apparatus for resistance control, Lasater feels that those yoga students familiar with the use of props (belts, bolsters, blocks) in the Iyengar method will feel right at home. As Lasater watched Madeline assisting Susan, she saw the attention Pilates pays to the alignment of the body, much like a yoga teacher would. She told me, One cannot practice yoga without learning to first feel the body as it is, to focus on what it is doing, and then to learn how to adapt the movement if there is something dysfunctional about it. This is obviously true of the Pilates method as well.

Pilates and hatha yoga also share similar goals. Both systems believe in individual progress in a noncompetitive arena. Each method strives to restore the bodys proper alignment; engages the mind; enhances strength, circulation, and flexibility; and improves balance. Total concentration, precise moves, economy of motion (Never do 10 pounds of effort for a five-pound movement, Joe Pilates used to say), and connection with the breath are all signatures of both Pilates and yoga. I find I cant cheat in performing moves in either disciplinein yoga class, I fall over (in a standing pose); in Pilates, the movements on the apparatus will become jerky rather than feel smooth and controlled.

There are several important distinctions, however, between yoga and Pilates. The obvious one, Susan points out, is that Pilates lacks the spiritual dimension of true yoga, although many yoga classes in America these days do too. Judith Lasater noticed another, important difference right away: While yoga focuses on the pause between the movements, Pilates is all about movement, functional movement, as Branum calls it. Pilates movements are very focused and often very slow, explains Branum. There is seldom any holding of the positions, unless to intensify a stretch, and then the focus is on the suspension within the movement. Yoga, of course, says Lasater, focuses on holding the positions, usually for longer and longer periods of time in order to create an environment in which the mind is taught to focus in preparation for meditation.

As a yoga teacher and Pilates trainer, Susan Branum is particularly excited about bringing Pilates awareness into her yoga classes. She sees the use of the core or control centers as beneficial, as well as the navel-to-spine awareness, exhalation on the movement, and the emphasis on visualization. I find, as I return to my yoga class, that my newly acquired Pilates training helps center me and strengthens my ability to hold certain poses, particularly the Cobra, the Bridge, and the Boat.

Working with Pilates

Because Pilates puts such emphasis on body alignment and proper breathing techniques, working with a trainer is imperative for at least the first five or six weeks. Fees for private sessions vary, depending on where you live, but generally run in the range of $35 to $65 per hour. Mat classes, where you learn pre-Pilates warmups and specific movements without the apparatus, are comparable in price to aerobics classes. After you feel at home with the Pilates method, you may purchase a Reformer for home use through Current Concepts in Sacramento, California, the largest manufacturer of Pilates equipment. The Institute for the Pilates Method also recently designed a home-use Reformer, one that is collapsible and uses bungee cords instead of springs for resistance.

Working at home once or twice a week on my Current Concepts Reformer is great. An instructional video for a 45-minute workout with Elizabeth Larkam comes with the equipment. But my home practice is no substitute for the hands-on, gentle guidance of Madeline and Susan, who patiently steer me on the right path, as their expert eyes notice every momentary lapse of concentration, every inappropriate micromovement. Like with yoga, a home practice merely enhances the one-on-one attention I get from an expert Pilates trainer who has, as Wee Tai Hom, director of the Pilates Studio in New York City says, the knowledge of the body, respect for it, and understanding of its nature to make it beautiful, keep it healthy, command it to express what we desire, and use its wonderful potential all our lives.

Linda Sparrowe is managing editor of Yoga Journal.

RESOURCES

For information on Pilates instructors in your area or certification programs, contact The Institute for the Pilates Method, 1807 Second St., #28, Santa Fe, NM 87501; (505) 9881990.

The Pilates Studio, 2121 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, also offers a certification program and instructor referrals. (212) 8750189.

Pilates as physical therapy is available through the Center for Sports Medicine at St. Francis Hospital, 900 Hyde St., San Francisco, CA 94109; (415) 3536410. Elizabeth Larkam, Director.

Madeline Black and Susan Branum can be contacted through A Body of Work Pilates Studio and Back Room Yoga, 1199 Sanchez, San Francisco, CA 94114; (415) 6471199 or (415) 8212979.

To order a Personal Reformer for home use, contact Ken Endelman, Current Concepts, 7500 14th Ave., #23, Sacramento, CA 95820; (800) 240FLEX.

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