First off, I’m the rare guy who’s done a lot of Pilates. I did it very regularly, one may say intensely, from August 2012 to August 2015, and I did bit last year (2016) when I had “bucks” to spend at Lifetime Fitness. I wanted to get back in shape but didn’t want to do a personal trainer (had done that in 2006, which was OK) and I didn’t want to do anything with intense cardio.
I was lucky: I started doing private lessons, and my teacher was really good for me. I switched to group classes after about a year and continued for another two years. I did get in pretty good shape, but I eventually quit due to reasons I will state in the “cons” section. One additional reason was that the studio I was in (and loved at first) fell apart, more or less. I’m still sad about that. I miss doing it and want to get back into it, though I think one session a week would be enough for me at this point. I used to do about three a week.
OK, let’s talk about the state of Pilates in 2017. Really, there’s not a lot to talk about, since people aren’t talking about Pilates. I have watched a bunch of bodybuilding videos, read a lot of articles about fitness, and my impression is that Pilates is a backwater these days. It’s not talked down, it’s not critiqued, it’s just invisible. It’s also just my impression, but in terms of fitness for women, a lot more people do yoga than Pilates. One simple reason is that one can get lower-cost yoga classes rather easily (they are “free” at Lifetime, for example), but Pilates always costs money and usually a substantial amount of it. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the method and discuss whether Pilates ought to be a fitness backwater these days.
Note that I am talking about Pilates on the reformer and other equipment and not mat Pilates. Contrary to what might be expected (from analogy with yoga?), founder Joseph Pilates used the reformer more or less from the start; it’s always been the basic way to do the system and not some upgrade from, or perversion of, mat practice.
Pros
• Each session is a full-body workout that works every muscle group and works on strength, flexibility, and balance.
• Teachers seem to have a lot of genuine knowledge of physiology and exercise. The Pilates way of looking at things is basically congruent with other rational exercises systems. E.g., your teacher will likely know what muscles the deadlift works.
• Surprisingly non-BS. It’s not like yoga at all, has no extraneous spiritual beliefs, etc. (I’m all for genuine spirituality, but I think yoga is an ungainly congeries of exercise and spiritual practice). Also, I have not found Pilates teachers to be dogmatic boosters of the system. (If anything, they don’t believe in it and practice it enough themselves, and it can tend to become a mere “product” in a studio that sells other forms of exercise.)
• Is the best ab exercise ever devised. No matter how much you think you’ve worked your abs, you haven’t even begun until you try Pilates. Your abs will be destroyed. Oh, and there are about 20 different exercises devised to destroy them.
• There are a ton of clever exercises of varying value. Really, it’s just a different world of exercise than anything else, and you can work muscle groups in some unique ways.
• Is a pleasant ritual. Pilates studios are nice, in general. They look and smell good. Classes are small and you tend to get to know people at your studio, at least somewhat, and on the whole it makes life feel more positive.
• Generally quite safe. This isn’t Crossfit. The chance of injury is non-zero, but on the whole it’s good.
Cons
• Too much ab work! This depends on the studio. I think my first studio really overdid it, whereas the teacher at Lifetime was more reasonable. To a point, it’s good; beyond that, it’s overkill.
• Too much fatigue. An issue in any exercise program is where genuine benefits end and simple fatigue begins. After Pilates, often I would feel wrung out like a rag doll and really tired for the rest of the day. If it was at night, it was too intense and I would have a hard time getting to sleep, despite the fatigue. Multiply this by three times a week, and it’s too much.
• Too much skill. Another issue in any exercise program is whether you are building muscle for everyday use or practicing skills that have no real use outside the exercise system itself. Pilates has a lot of specialized movements (i.e., those clever exercises), and sometimes their true usefulness is dubious.
• There are useless and even dangerous exercises. I think sideovers are complete bullshit. I really came to hate them. Side planks should be banned: they are too hard on the wrist, and I got a nasty ganglion cyst from doing one one time. The chair has a step you can use to develop your quads, among other things. The good news is that it is one of the best quad exercises ever. The bad news is that you are trying to balance even as you are burning your quads to ash. That means you can fall off, and in a group class it is hard for the teacher to pay attention to everyone’s fatigue level, and no one wants to give up. I fell off the chair once and got a nasty gash on my shin that required a bit of first aid.
• Expensive and hard to get into except through privates. It’s very hard for someone to jump into group classes, since Pilates is so specialized. So you end up having to take private lessons–which are great! But also quite pricey. Depending on the studio, group classes can end up a reasonable though palpable monthly expense. I was paying $199/month for 10 Pilates group classes–the trick was trying to use them all.
Cons specific to men.
• It’s all chicks. It really is. I can count on one finger or so the men who were in group classes who were not there with girlfriends or wives, and I can count on one hand the total number of men I encountered in group classes at all.
Why is this? Here is my speculation:
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Pilates rewards flexibility. Although this is good for men, who are on the whole less flexible than women, it also tends to “reward” women with greater success in the system. Put simply, men inherently suck at it more, so they do it less, even though it would in some ways benefit them more. I think this factor also explains why many more women do yoga than men.
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Snowball effect. Since only women do Pilates, it comes to seem as though it’s only for women–and only women do it.
And men also avoid Pilates because of the following con for men:
• Pilates doesn’t build muscle beyond a certain point. In actuality, it is a great muscle builder overall. After a year of doing only Pilates, I could practically bench my own weight (I could do 175 lbs. without a spot, could clearly do more, and weighed about 200 at the time). Nevertheless, some exercises start to seem easy after awhile, and Pilates has no way to “take you higher” without special attention from the teacher. There are also some fitness goals that simply aren’t included at all, such as being able to do pull-ups.
• Too much abs! In general, women do not get big muscles from exercise, even if they get stronger. Men do, in general. If you nuke your abs all the time Pilates-style, you will get bigger abs and a bigger gut. This is counteracted somewhat but not completely by an overall tightening of the core. I have found the additional core strength Pilates helps develop to be quite useful (try moving furniture after doing Pilates for a few years–totally different). But I also did develop a huge slab of meat in front.
Thus, if you end up without the participation of half the population, it’s no wonder that your system isn’t taken quite seriously. It’s a shame in a way. Pilates has a lot to offer as an exercise system, but I think it requires a new revolution, so to speak. It needs to address the needs of men better, lose some of the fancy but useless exercises, and integrate more effectively with the wider world of fitness.
Thoughts?