Pilates: Devotees call exercise method ‘the new aerobics’

(Mail Tribune) - At 51, P.J. O’Keefe had a bad back, "no abs at all" and 30 pounds of extra weight. Two years later, she said, "I feel fabulous, look like a goddess and have abs that make my 20-year-old son weep."

She credits Pilates.

Although the exercise method, pronounced, "puh-lah-teez," has been around for decades, its popularity has soared in the past couple of years. Today, followers pack classes at area fitness centers, including one at the Ashland YMCA, which began teaching the exercises this spring.

"It’s the new aerobics," said Laurie Evans, the Ashland Y’s health enhancement director. "You have to get here 15 minutes early to get a spot where you can see the instructor."

The regimen, brought to this country in 1926 by German-born Joseph Pilates, is a series of easy-enough movements that blend calisthenics, aerobics and yoga to work "core" muscles of the torso, especially back and abdominals, to improve strength and flexibility.

It does not provide an aerobic or cardiovascular workout, said Y instructor Lin van Heuit-Robbins. Pilates should be augmented with aerobic exercise, she said, and a resistance or weight-training workout for arms and legs.

"It strengthens the core, which is where all gracefulness comes from," said Southern Oregon University physical education professor Laura Jones, who takes Heuit-Robbins’ Wednesday morning classes. "You end up with a chest that’s more open, shoulders that are more down and it protects the spine by keeping the belly in."

Pilates students practice gentle sets of leg lifts, arm lifts, slow sit-ups, supine rocking motions, cycling while on your back and spinal twists using an elastic strap under your feet, an approach that may seem almost too easy until you’re done and notice the toned, relaxed, energized feeling and the spring in your step.

In the Ashland Y’s class, Heuit-Robbins offers verbal cues for different levels of difficulty with each exercise and guides students through breathing.

Pregnant women, the handicapped or those recovering from injuries are specifically guided on the easier levels of each exercise — for instance, expectant moms will do the "swimming" exercise in a standing rather than supine position and with less range of motion.

New mothers Tara Rice and Mia Morrish are doing the workouts to get their bodies back after childbirth, especially the abdominals.

"I get the full stretch and know I’m working each part of the body," said Morrish. "It’s the perfect ab workout."

"You get your muscles back," said Rice, who delivered twins, "and significant increase in back and stomach muscles. You feel relaxed. I think of it as a cross between yoga and weight training."

Nikki Cotton enrolled in the class at her back doctor’s suggestion.

"They said it would help," she said. "It does. I’m stronger. It concentrates directly on the muscles I need to work with — and it’s better than yoga. In yoga, you have to hold the position longer, so it’s not as fun. With Pilates, you move right through each one."

The Y’s Evans said much of the demand for the class comes from baby boomers, the oldest of whom are entering their 60s.

"It’s something they can comfortably do, without any impact on their joints, and really keep in shape as they get older," she said. "They understand they have to use it or lose it."

To meet the demand, the Y is looking at adding another class as soon as it can find more certified instructors, trained by the Physical Mind Institute, a pilates school, the American Council of Exercise and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

Pilates classes are offered in many gyms and dance studios. Some have Pilates workout machines that focus on select muscle groups.

The machines can "load muscles" when you extend as well as contract muscles, said Ashland chiropractor Ilena Rubenstein, who has a Pilates workout studio adjacent to her Balancing Act dance room.

With the machines "you can get in positions you can’t get into on the mat," said Rubenstein. "They force tension into your body gradually and in just the right amounts and make you stay conscious and focused, which increases the effect on your body."