Pilates at Home

Beginners can start out with any book or video and perform Pilates at home. Most versions of Pilates being marketed today in books and videos are designed not to be physically challenging. But, Joseph Pilates' classical matwork of 34 exercises can provide a very physically demanding workout, for those up to the challenge.

Highlights of Pilates at Home:

• Introduction to the practice of Pilates.
• Suggested Pilates self-instruction materials for learning Pilates at home.
• The 34 Pilates Classic Matwork Exercises for Performing Pilates at home.

The practice of Pilates in your home gym is called matwork.

Joseph Pilates never used the term matwork or Pilates in his two booklets. Pilates wrote in his Return to Life booklet that his exercises can be performed either on the floor or on a mat. He demonstrated his exercises barefooted, wearing only exercise trunks. He recommended wearing as little clothing as possible while doing your matwork. And, he suggests that you start out doing a few of these exercises in sequential order for just ten minutes a day, 4 days a week, for at least 3 months. You should be motivated by the results to workout longer by gradually increasing the number of exercises that you perform in each workout session.

The 34 Pilates Classic Matwork Exercises for Performing Pilates at home from Joseph Pilates' Return to Life Through Contrology, 1945. Yellow denotes common to all. Aqua denotes just Pilates for Dummies. Silver denotes just in the Pilates Body book. Lime denotes that these exercises are NOT in the Pilates Body book.
01 The Hundred	11 The Saw	22 The Teaser
02 The Roll Up	12 The Swan-Dive	23 The Hip Twist With Stretched Arms [Hip Circles]
03 The Roll-Over with Legs Spread	13 The One Leg Kick [Single Leg Kicks]	24 Swimming
04 The One Leg Circle [Leg Circles]	14 The Double Kick [Double Leg Kicks]	25 The Leg-Pull -- Front [The Leg Pull-Down] [Front Support]
05 Rolling Back [Rolling Like]	15 The Neck Pull	26 The Leg-Pull [-- Back] [Leg Pull-Up] [Back Support]
06 The One Leg Stretch [Single Leg]	16 The Scissors	27 The Side Kick Kneeling [Kneeling}
07 The Double Leg Stretch [Double Leg]	17 The Bicycle	28 The Side Bend [Mermaid/Side]
* Single Straight Leg Stretch	18 The Shoulder Bridge	29 The Boomerang
* Double Straight Leg Stretch
* Crisscross
08 The Spine Stretch	19 The Spine Twist	30 The Seal
09 Rocker With Open Legs [Open-Leg Rocker]	20 The Jack Knife	The Crab The Rocking The Control Balance
10 The Cork-Screw	21 The Side Kick	34 The Push up

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BOOK The Pilates Body - This book is invaluable for anyone already sold on the value of doing Pilates classical matwork correctly. This book is "the" modern version of the Bible for devotees of classical matwork. And, serves as an excellent adjunct to video workouts. The main part of the book is the detailed description of a long sequence of 34 exercises on the mat, as taught by Joseph Pilates. The book classifies each of these exercises as either beginner, intermediate, or advanced moves. This makes mastering classical matwork, which is physically demanding even for ballet dancers, more manageable. One valuable feature of the book is where thumbnail photographs of all the 34 exercises are provided on one page. This clearly shows that all of Joseph Pilates original matwork exercises work powerhouse muscles. In addition, the book also includes photographs of Joseph Pilates at various ages who obviously never suffered from skinny legs, nor ever had that skinny frail look so characteristic of old age, even at 82 years of age. That is the promise of Pilates classical matwork: the long muscular look of a dancer, even in old age.
VHS DVD Pilate's for Dummies offers step-by-step instruction for 18 popular Pilates matwork exercises. As the name implies it is an instructional video for beginners. This means that there is a lot of talking in it. Once you get proficient in Pilates, it would be irritating to try following along on this tape. I found the expert instruction by only one person, very easy to follow, and precisely what I wanted. However, overall the tape suggests that Pilates is not quite as physically demanding as it could be. The hundred exercise demo suggests that the objective is to lower your legs to about a 45 degree angle, rather than to the desired level of about 6 inches off the floor, for example. As an instructional video, it is surprisingly good, thorough, and authentic.
BOOK Study the 34 classical Pilates matwork exercises, demonstrated by, and with the original instructions written by Joseph Pilates. Anybody who takes their Pilates seriously, should be interested enough to read everything written by Joseph Pilates. Now, you can get both of his booklets (Return to Life and Your Health) at one low price
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Physical exercise will improve your natural health and fitness. Physical exercise is part of healthy living. Anybody interested in natural health should regularly participate in moderate forms of physical exercise like fitness walking. An active lifestyle, is even better than physical exercise, in improving your natural health and fitness.

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References

• Your Health, Published by Jospeh Pilates, 1934.
• Return to Life Through Contrology, Published by Jospeh Pilates and William John Miller, 1945.