Pilates

Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born on December 9, 1883 in Mönchengladbach (near Düsseldorf), Germany. His father, a native of Greece, had been a prize-winning gymnast, while his German-born mother was a naturopath who believed in the principle of stimulating the body to heal itself without artificial drugs. It was undoubtedly this that greatly influenced Pilates’ later ideas on therapeutic exercise.
 

It was said that Pilates’ was a small sickly child who suffered from asthma and was afflicted by rickets and rheumatic fever.  He was a determined child and as he progressed into adulthood he began educating himself on overcoming some of these physical disadvantages, learning about the anatomy, body-building, yoga and gymnastics to name but a few.
 

He was enamoured of the classical Greek ideal of a man who is balanced equally in body, mind, and spirit, and he came to believe that our modern lifestyle, bad posture, and inefficient breathing were the roots of poor health.

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Origins of the Pilates Method

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His answer to these problems was to design a unique series of vigorous physical exercises that help to correct muscular imbalances and improve posture, coordination, balance, strength, and flexibility, as well as to increase breathing capacity and organ function. He also invented a variety of machines, based on spring-resistance, that could be used to perform these exercises.