Pilates

[Guest guest]

Mel

Thanks for the references on the subject. I went through the

archives and read some of the posts, including those you

recommended. I compared these comments to the one, albeit very

short, Pilates, session I did in Santa . ly, I didn't find

the stretches any different that what I was already doing from the

book, " Stretching. " There are only so many ways you can bend your

body. Sure there may be different angles. For example, if you sit

on the floor and put both legs out in front of you and bend over,

that's one stretch, then you can move your legs apart at various

distances. Much of how far apart you can get your legs depends on

your flexibility and the way your hip joint is constructed.

However, I really doubt that other than two or three variations of

this at the most would make any difference, if even that. It just

smacks of training one part of a muscle. I agree that you can

stress one part of a muscle more than another part, or maybe you

only feel like it, such as incline vs. decline benches, but the

entire muscle still fires.

On the other hand, I don't suppose that stretching the Pilates way versus

regular static stretches would be " wrong. " If the author of the article in MILO

is getting benefits and likes it, fine. Possibly he didn't stretch much before

he got into Pilates; he didn't say.

I have also been told that Pilates gives one the look of a dancer

rather than a bodybuilder, like this is supposed to be preferable?

Hey, most dancers look terrific, with wonderful posture and

beautiful carriage, but a well trained natural bodybuilder looks

great, too. Actually better to my eye (yeah, I'm prejudiced)

because they have much nicer muscle shape. Too many dancers are

rather stringy looking, although I understand that in the

professional ballet world, they like the very thin look and a lot of

women (especially) smoke and don't eat properly to achieve this

somewhat anorexic appearance. Personally I feel this " look " is

rather genetic. With a small bone structure and a rather fast

metabolism, I appear long and lean rather than bulky although I'm

delighted with the muscle mass that now shows from the years of

resistance training. On the other hand, there are a lot of people

who are very large framed and muscular and will never have that

" dancer " appearance no matter what they do.

It seems the Pilates advertising thrust, especially since it was popular amongst

dancers early in our last century, is misleading in that regard. It plays

to women, especially, because it fits in with the current media

ideal appearance. This would definitely explain the Pilates studio

every two blocks in the Brentwood area, where people have a lot of

money to spend, but often don't want to make the necessary effort

to do what it takes. We've just covered that topic!

Rosemary