Term Paper on "Pilates Exercise Specialists Program, Wellington, New Zealand"

Term Paper 11 pages (4691 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Pilates Exercise Specialists Program, Wellington, New Zealand, is guaranteed to make the user 'feel' the difference after two sessions, 'see' the difference after another few sessions, and make others 'notice' the difference after a few more weeks. What is Pilates Exercise, and how is it done? What is it supposed to do for the individual who opts for the Program, and how will the individual respond to it? The Pilates Exercise Program is supposedly one of the most comprehensive exercise programs ever offered to an individual who wants to exercise regularly. What it consists of is a full range of exercises to be done on machines and other equipment, and also a set of mat exercises. The Program is also often referred to as 'The Pilates Method of Mental and Physical Conditioning', and the Program is basically structured and tailored according to the individual's personal and unique needs, and must be performed on specially designed exercise equipment. (Welcome to the world of Pilates Exercise)

The Pilates Method is not only popular with the average person, who would wish to perform daily exercises, but also with medical practitioners, and from exercise specialists and also from sports professionals. This is because of the innate quality of the Pilates Exercise Program, which actually stretches and bends and flexes the body, and also performs the added functions of toning the body, rehabilitating the injured body, and preventing injuries, and also of providing immense relief from back pains. Added to all these benefits, there are some more advantages of using the Pilates Exercise Program. The clients of the Program have reported that after using the Program they have felt immense relief from stress, fatigue and any other types of physical discomforts that they may have been experiencing, and because of the fact that they no longer felt vulnerable or tired and irritable, they often state that they felt that they had received a new lease on life, because they felt more self-confident, and also felt that they had more endurance for all of life's daily stresses and strains.

The Pilates Exercise Program believes that the individual who enrolls for the Program must be ready to spend a few months of his time in seeking relief for whatever ails him, through the method, and this is where, the Directors of the Pilates Program say, most people lack, because of the truth that they will never be ready to invest a lot of time in the improvement of their physical and mental health. The Directors also state that the identification of the weaker parts of the body in order to concentrate the exercise Program on those weaker parts to gain better benefits may be an easier task than getting the individual to continue in the Program. However, if the person is as committed as the team of professional who are in charge of the Program are, then the results would be more obvious within a shorter period of time than expected. Actually developed in order to rehabilitate wounded soldiers during the World War I, the Pilates Method of Mental and Physical Conditioning are of immense value for those persons who have to undergo rehabilitation exercises after any sort of injuries or worse to the body. (Welcome to the world of Pilates Exercise)

The objective of the Program is to be able to achieve both mental and physical balance of the person to be treated, and in order to achieve this, the person is put through a series of tests that would identify the physical weaknesses in the individual's body, and then go about the process of the correction of the weaknesses and the imbalances. Structural alignment and muscular balance is the aim of the Program, and the individual who enrolls would be in a perfectly fit condition when he finishes the program. In addition, when a person is to undergo rehabilitation exercises, it is a fact that unnecessary surgery would be avoided if he were to follow the Pilates Exercise Program, because it would not only restore the strength of the muscles but also rejuvenate and tone the wasted muscles and build up the person's endurance. (Welcome to the world of Pilates Exercise)

II. History of Pilates:

The Pilate Program has a long and interesting history behind it. It was in the year 1926 that Joseph Pilates and his wife; Clara Pilates arrived from Germany as German immigrants, and landed up in New York. The young Joseph Pilates had been a severely asthmatic child, and this prompted and motivated him as a child, to attempt to improve his physique and general physical condition so that he would be able to better fight the asthma that was plaguing him. This is why he took up the practice of the techniques of the Indian exercises called 'Yoga', and also some forms of marital arts of the Eastern part of the world. Exercises and a strict conditioning regimen that Joseph managed to follow kept him completely physical as well as mentally fit, and this was attributed in no small measure to the various exercises that he followed, as well as the approval and guidance of his wife Clara, who was a Nurse herself. (An overview of the Pilates Technique)

More than seventy years later, the techniques that were followed by Joseph Pilates became the cornerstone of the 'Balanced Body Method', and to this day, the followers of the method swear by it. Joseph Pilates was also an avid gymnast and a pugilist with a whole lot of extremely creative ideas and concepts on physical fitness and its maintenance through exercises. In addition, he also had a number of brilliant ideas on the theme of rehabilitation after physical injuries of any sort, especially to the spinal column and the backbone. In fact, during the First World War, Joseph Pilates at an internment camp rigged up a hospital bed on the premises so that the wounded soldiers could begin their treatment and recovery at the internment camp itself, while they were still lying down flat on their backs. This idea was what happened to evolve into the Cadillac method, wherein the concentration was to be on a 'whole' method of exercise, which was named 'Contrology' at that time by none other than Joseph himself. (An overview of the Pilates Technique)

In 1923, soon after their arrival in New York, the Pilates set up an 'Exercise Studio' at 939, Eighth Avenue, but the sad fact is that no records exist as to these few years of Joseph Pilates' practice. However, by the year 1940, the Dance Community of New York had found that the Exercise Studio run by Joseph Pilates was indeed notorious, and this was because, according to a newspaper article, almost anybody and everybody who had enrolled in the 'Joseph's Pillow' from the years 1939 to 1951, had in fact to submit meekly to all the various ministrations of the highly spirited and exuberant Joseph Pilate. By the beginning of the 1960's, Pilates had become extremely well-known and widely acknowledged as a Dance Instructor, and almost every single Dancer at the time had received instruction from him, including the young ballet dancers who belonged to the New York Ballet School, and his fame started to spread outside New York too. Soon, Joseph Pilates' dancing and breathing techniques were adapted by Dance Schools everywhere, and numerous young dancers would dance and breathe Pilates' techniques, without even being aware that the creator of the method was in fact very much alive, and was named Joseph Pilates.

There were a number of students of Joseph who started their own Studios while the man himself was still alive, and the more famous among them are the German contortionist Carola Trier who had suffered an injury and was put back into action by Joseph Pilate, after which she was helped in setting up her own Studio. Another famous student was the sportsman Bob Seed, who was an avid fan and admirer of Joseph and wanted to emulate him and his techniques. When Joseph Pilates passed away, there was confusion as to who would continue all his good work. When Ron Fletcher, another great fan of Pilates' methods of exercise, opened his own Studio in Los Angeles in the 1970's, he managed to attract a great many Hollywood stars, and this led to the added popularity of Pilates' methods. Fletcher brought in some innovations to the existing techniques of the Pilates' workouts, and these remain, to this day, an integral part of the Joseph Pilates Exercise Programs. (An overview of the Pilates Technique)

III) Pilates and the manner in which the Pilates technique benefits the very core of the body and conditions it

The Pilates Total Conditioning Program is one in which the human body is virtually worked 'from the inside out', by laying the maximum emphasis and focusing primarily on the 'core' muscles of the body. What are these core muscles and where are they located? Core muscles are those muscles tat are located in the… READ MORE

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