What Are The Main Things You Must Know Before Joining Pilates Classes?

Whether you’re a fitness guru or someone wanting to find a new fitness routine, Pilates studio classes might be a good fit for you. Pilates is a challenging yet effective and fantastic way to improve your body’s movements and helps you to understand how your body works through various graceful exercises. The aim is to improve your flexibility and body alignment while strengthening your muscles simultaneously.

Although Pilates is a low-impact exercise, your whole body gets a good workout. The main focus of Pilates is the exercise of your core and entire trunk (back, thighs, hips and abdominals), however, you can also mix up the moves a bit to work on areas like your lower legs, arms and glutes. At Heba Pilates, we focus on six stages to help you understand what your body wants so that you can use your newfound freedom of movement automatically.

Step Into Your Heba Being

Becoming a Heba Being means you’ve followed your Heba Journey to acquire the following six superpowers and stages:

1. Stability -  To help improve stability in the way your body moves, you have to teach the small, local muscles to prepare the body for movement. This then allows your larger global muscles to move fluidly. Great for alleviating back pain.
2. Mobility - Partnering with stability, mobility focuses on the entire range of movement in a joint. You will improve your posture and range of motion by developing active and controlled mobility. This helps reduce any injury risks to your joints.
3. Strength - Once you’ve learnt how to move your muscles and joints more freely, you can then start to strengthen them. It’s especially vital to strengthen your legs, hips, arms, shoulders and back, which is possible through Pilates and the Heba Journey.
4. Balance - Getting this far into the Journey, you’ll be able to recognise where your body is most imbalanced and get on your way to correct it. Whether you’re standing still or moving, your muscles can cooperate well once you achieve anterior, posterior and lateral balance.
5. Control - By the time you get to this stage, you will already be able to feel the benefits from the previous steps. Bringing them all together means you’ll be able to control the use of your muscles efficiently. When you’re in control, it’ll further increase your balance, reinforce strengthening and increase your mobility. It all comes full circle.
6. Challenge - When you acquire all the previous superpowers, you can then begin to challenge yourself further. You then have the confidence to know where and when to challenge yourself. We want to make sure that you don’t plateau and continue progressing, which is why we will constantly refresh the steps in your Journey.

Things To Know Before Starting Pilates

Whether you plan on attending Pilates studio classes or want to begin Pilates classes at home, there are some things you should know before starting.

There Are Two Types Of Pilates Classes

If you decide to visit one of your local Pilates studios to start your new fitness regime, you should be aware that there are two types of Pilates classes available:

1. Mat Classes - A class where you carry out your exercises on a mat that’s thicker than a standard yoga mat. The mat is there to help cushion your pressure points and make you feel more comfortable than you would on the floor.
2. Reformer Classes - A reformer is a Pilates exercise machine with a sliding platform for you to use alongside the stationary foot bar, pulleys and springs. These elements together provide resistance which helps you tone your body.

Because the top goals of Pilates are to strengthen the right muscles, correct your balance and improve mobility, the focus of both types of classes is the idea of control. You can achieve this by connecting your mind with your body and breathing, taking time with the exercises and completely focusing on what you’re doing.

Wear Comfortable Clothes

Before you head to Pilates studio classes or start your workout at home, you need to make sure that you wear comfortable clothes of a tighter fit on your body. Wearing baggy clothes will restrict some of your movements and could potentially get caught in the springs if you’re using a reformer. Whereas body-hugging clothes allow you to move your body more freely, and if you attend a class, your instructor will be able to see your movements easier. We recommend wearing leggings and a crop or tank top for optimum mobility.

Pilates exercises don’t require you to wear any footwear. Instead, you can decide whether to go barefoot or just wear socks. This approach allows you to align your feet better which will help with improving your posture. If you want to wear socks, we recommend wearing non-slip ones to prevent you from slipping on the mat or reformer.

Be Prepared For The Jargon

If you’re a Pilates beginner, expect to hear the terminology that comes with it. It may take some time to get your head around it, but you’ll get there eventually. Being in the centre of the studio will give you the best view to catch onto instructions quicker, and you can look to the regulars or the instructor for help. 

To get you started, here are some top words or phrases you’re likely to hear:

●     Anchor your spine - the placement of your back when it touches a surface.

●     Chin to chest - slightly nodding your head towards your throat.

●     Core - the area of your body that includes shoulder blade muscles, abdominals, spine, glutes and inner thighs.

●     Deepen the curve - a movement that creates a “C” shape of your spine.

●     Feet in “V” position - standing with your heels together and your toes slightly apart.

●     Pelvic Girdle - a bony arch that supports the hind limbs in vertebrates.

●     Powerhouse - a term to incorporate the inner thighs, buttocks, lower back muscles, hips and abdominal muscles.

●     Sit tall - sit as tall as you can.

●     Shoulder Girdle - bones that support the front limbs in vertebrates.

●     Work from the inside out, not the outside in - initiating movement from your centre, core or powerhouse rather than your limbs.

●     Work in opposition - reaching the body in two different directions simultaneously.

Expect To Be Sore At First

As a beginner, Pilates can feel quite intense at first. You’ll feel the burn in your muscles during Pilates studio classes, which shows that the exercises are working. Your body probably hasn’t moved like this before, and it takes time to get used to the movements. Of course, if you feel in pain, let your instructor know.

Because you’ll have worked on the muscles that each exercise plans, you’ll probably be feeling a bit sore the next day. This is very common because you’re challenging your muscles like never before and giving them close attention.

Have A Balanced Fitness Routine

Pilates should be a part of a well-rounded fitness plan. As a beginner, your body will be getting used to many new movements and needs to adapt. It would be best if you allowed time for your body to recover, so it’s a good idea to take a day or two off between classes or sessions.

You could always work in other exercises around your Pilates classes, and you will probably notice that you can do different exercises easier thanks to the change in your body’s movements and increased strength. You might find that you can run faster, swim better, lift heavier weights and much more.