What Pilates Actually Is (And What It Isn't)

People apologize when they ask me what Pilates is, which tells you how long the word has been floating around without a definition attached to it. It is on the sign outside a hundred studios and on an app on your phone, and it seems to mean stretching, or abs, or a machine with straps, depending on who you ask.

So here it is plainly. Pilates is a movement method built around control, breath and precision, in which you move intentionally and pay close attention to how you are doing it. It began with a set of thirty-four floor exercises, published in 1945 by a German-born trainer named Joseph Pilates, who called his method Contrology. The springs and straps came later, and they are an extension of the same idea. The organizing principle is not how much you can do. It is how well you can do it, and how much of your attention you can keep on it while you do.

That last sentence is the whole thing, and it is also why Pilates confuses people who arrive expecting a workout.

Why is Pilates called Contrology?

Joseph Pilates named it himself, and he meant it literally. He described the method as the complete coordination of body, mind and spirit, and he wrote about it in two books, Your Health in 1934 and Return to Life through Contrology in 1945. The second one contains the thirty-four mat exercises that studios still teach today.

The name matters because it tells you what he was aiming at. Control, in his sense, means you decide where the movement starts, how fast it travels, and where it stops. Nothing swings. Nothing gets thrown. You are the one steering.

I came to this work through a short line. I trained under Dr. Jean Sabatine, whose mentor was Jerome Robbins, who studied with Joseph and Clara Pilates. Two teachers between me and the man himself. That lineage does not make me right about anything, and it does mean the version I teach has had fewer chances to drift.

What happens in a Pilates class?

You will lie down more than you expect. You will move less far than you expect. And you will be asked, repeatedly, to notice something specific: where your ribs are, whether your shoulders crept up, what your breath did when the exercise got harder.

A mat class works with your own body weight on the floor, sometimes with a small ball, a band or light hand weights. Equipment classes use spring-loaded apparatus, where the springs can either help you into a movement you cannot yet make on your own or ask more of you in one you can. I have written about the difference between the two in more detail elsewhere, so I will leave that thread there.

What both share are the mind-body connection, breath control, and working from the inside out.

How is Pilates different from a regular workout?

A conventional strength session asks a muscle to produce force, and it measures you by load and repetitions. Pilates asks a whole chain of muscles to organize themselves around a moving spine, and it measures you by how cleanly that happens. You are training coordination as much as strength, which is why a beginner can leave a class shaking having lifted nothing at all.

There is also the brain part, which gets skipped in most descriptions. Every exercise gives you something to track while you are moving, so the attention has to stay in the room. The neurological and stress relief benefits are enormous. Forty years of teaching has convinced me this is a large part of what keeps people coming back long after their original goal has been met.

Is Pilates the same as yoga?

They share a floor, a mat and a lot of breathing, and they come from completely different places. Yoga is a practice thousands of years old with philosophical and spiritual roots, and its Asana (poses) are usually held. Pilates is a twentieth-century rehabilitation and conditioning method, and its exercises are usually moving. Plenty of people do both, and they tend to describe them as doing different jobs and very complimentary to each other.

What Pilates is not

It is not a stretching class, though you will feel longer afterwards. It is not an abdominal workout, though your abdominals will have plenty to do. It is not only for dancers, or only for young bodies, or only for people who are already flexible: I teach students from their teens to their eighties every week, and the eighty-six-year-olds are not doing a watered-down version, they are doing their version.

And it is not a fast route to anything. The back might stop hurting after the first class or the tenth. The quality of life changes are real and they are gradual, and they usually show up first in ordinary places. Getting off the floor. Carrying shopping or a suitcase up a flight of stairs. Walking all day without your lower back complaining.

Who is Pilates for?

Anyone willing to move while paying attention. It suits people coming back from injury, because everything scales down. It suits people who sit for a living, because it works the parts of you that sitting switches off. It suits people who have tried exercise that hurt and concluded exercise hurts, because this one does not have to.

If you have a condition, a recent surgery or a pregnancy in the picture, tell your teacher before class rather than during, and check with your clinician first if anything is new or undiagnosed.

Frequently asked questions

Is Pilates good for beginners?

Yes, and the class matters more than the equipment. Look for a small group where the teacher can see everyone, and say hello before you start so they know what your body is dealing with. Also look for classes that are offered in separate levels and start in level 1 or a beginner class, even if you are in great shape. You might progress to different classes quite quickly, or maybe not. Pilates is not a race. In a good class you will learn to use your body differently.

Do I need to be flexible to start?

No. Flexibility is one of the things the practice builds, and arriving stiff is the most ordinary way to arrive.

How often should I do Pilates?

Twice a week is the point where most people stop feeling like they are starting again each time. Three is better if your schedule allows it.

Can Pilates help with back pain?

It is one of the most common reasons people come, and the mechanism is straightforward: most back pain involves muscles that are not doing their share, and this work finds them. If your pain is new, severe, or travels down a leg, see a clinician before you start.

Is mat Pilates easier than reformer Pilates?

Neither one is the easy option. The reformer's springs can make a movement more available, and the mat gives you nothing to lean on, so the control has to come from you.

Where to start

Come to a class and tell me what your body is doing. That conversation is how I create modifications for you, and it is the whole reason a seventeen-year-old and an eighty-six-year-old can share a class and get what they need. I teach ten classes every week both in-studio and online. Find my Pilates classes here.