History of Pilates

The Pilates Machine was the brainchild of Joseph Hubertus Pilates, a German who was born in 1880. As a child, Joseph Pilates suffered from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever. Determined to overcome his ailments, he began to study anatomy as well as Eastern and Western forms of exercise, including Yoga, weight training, wrestling, and acrobatics. He was particularly enamored of the ancient Classic Greek “ideal man” who was equally schooled in cognitive thinking, philosophy, and history, but also maintained a finely tuned, athletic body.

When World War I broke out, Joseph Pilates found himself interned in England as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. The health conditions in the internment camps were not great, but Pilates insisted that everyone in his cell block participate in daily exercise routines to help maintain both their physical and mental well-being. However, some of the injured German soldiers were too weak to get out of bed.

Not content to leave his comrades lying idle, Pilates took springs from the beds and attached them to the headboards and footboards of the iron bed frames, turning them into equipment that provided a type of resistance exercise for his bedridden “patients.” This equipment was used to correct muscular imbalances and improve posture, coordination, balance, strength, and flexibility, as well as to increase breathing capacity and organ function.

In 1926, Joseph Pilates moved to New York and brought along this method of exercise, which he termed ‘Contrology’. He defined Contrology as “the comprehensive integration of body, mind and spirit.”

The earliest American students of Contrology were professional dancers, because they repeatedly injured themselves. Soon the choreographer George Balanchine and other movement visionaries became believers in Contrology. From there the exercise, but not the name, caught on–everyone seemed to prefer to call it ‘Pilates.’

Today, many famous athletes, dancers, models and actors, as well as business professionals, housewives, and retires have taken up Pilates as their regular exercise routine.

An excellent book on presentation of the original Pilates matwork has been written by Brooke Siler. In The Pilates Body, she provides simple and easy to follow explanations for both novice and advanced Pilates students. She also provides photos, detailed text and analogies that make it ideal for home use.