Pilates and Fibromyalgia

Alice, THANK YOU for sharing this!  I know it inspired ME today!  I am going to take a little break after I post my response and get out my yoga mat and dumbells (very light weights, 1-3#) and do some of what I do at home (though not frequently enough).  

I've been following about Pilates with interest since I first learned of it when I moved to Denver when I graduated as an OT.  My best gal pal was doing it at a studio with a trainer and it was quite expensive.  At that time (1996/7) I don't think any of these home 'gadgets' had been invented/marketed yet.  She was an international flight attendant with a lot of years with her airline and was quite an inspiration to me at that time because she had gone back to work as a flight attendant after having her right/dominant arm/hand amputated below the elbow.  I'd read about her gushing appreciation for her OT in the article in the newspaper about the phenomenon of her going back to work as a flight attendant with her new prosthetics and all. I read that one December day when I was about to write out Christmas cards and sent one to her through the article's reporter, who sent it along to her.  It inspired her as she got it when she returned from her first trip after returning to work and thought she wasn't going to be able to do it.  I'd included in my card about my recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome and my husband's struggles with hydrocephalus and surgeries/infections and our accomplishments in spite of all that in life and work.  Anyway, I'd have to try to keep up with her when we went bike riding or snowshoing and was quite impressed with pilates!

Knowing a bit about the history today when I read this wonderful piece you've shared with us about Pilates, I thought I'd try to find a good resource online to refer people to for more history about it.  I chose the pilates.com website only because they have the domain for 'pilates' and after getting a domain for a word I know what that means (yes, we had to make up a nonsense word like Lumigrate!).  Here's a link, below, to that website and the entire info they have about the history of how Pilates was developed -- It's fascinating I think and I'm going to get you started here with some of the information then let you follow out on the link to the website this came from (pilates.com) if you want to read more ......

Joseph Pilates and the History of Pilates

What's all the fuss about? Pilates seems to have burst on the scene out of nowhere in the last 10 years. After decades as the workout of the elite, Pilates has entered the fitness mainstream. What’s the fascinating story behind how Pilates began, and why the recent “overnight success”? Here's a brief look at its history.

How Pilates Began

Joe went to England in 1912, where he worked as a self-defense instructor for detectives at Scotland Yard. At the outbreak of World War I, Joe was interned as an "enemy alien" with other German nationals. During his internment, Joe refined his ideas and trained other internees in his system of exercise. He rigged springs to hospital beds, enabling bedridden patients to exercise against resistance, an innovation that led to his later equipment designs. An influenza epidemic struck England in 1918, killing thousands of people, but not a single one of Joe's trainees died. This, he claimed, testified to the effectiveness of his system.

After his release, Joe returned to Germany. His exercise method gained favor in the dance community, primarily through Rudolf von Laban, who created the form of dance notation most widely used today. Hanya Holm adopted many of Joe's exercises for her modern dance curriculum, and they are still part of the "Holm Technique." When German officials asked Joe to teach his fitness system to the army, he decided to leave Germany for good.

The Pilates movement gains in popularity – from Europe to the U.S.

In 1926, Joe emigrated to the United States. During the voyage he met Clara, whom he later married. Joe and Clara opened a fitness studio in New York, sharing an address with the New York City Ballet.

By the early 1960s, Joe and Clara could count among their clients many New York dancers. George Balanchine studied "at Joe's," as he called it, and also invited Pilates to instruct his young ballerinas at the New York City Ballet.

"Pilates" was becoming popular outside of New York as well. As the New York Herald Tribune noted in 1964, "in dance classes around the United States, hundreds of young students limber up daily with an exercise they know as a pilates, without knowing that the word has a capital P, and a living, right-breathing namesake."

His students begin to teach

While Joe was still alive, only two of his students, Carola Trier and Bob Seed, are known to have opened their own studios. Trier, who had an extensive dance background, found her way to the United States by becoming a performing contortionist, after fleeing a Nazi holding camp in France. She found Joe Pilates in 1940, when a non-stage injury pre-empted her performing career. Joe Pilates assisted Trier in opening her own studio in the late 1950s. Joe and Clara remained close friends with Trier until their deaths.

Bob Seed was another story. A former hockey player turned "Pilates" enthusiast, Seed opened a studio across town from Joe and tried to take away some of Joe's clients by opening very early in the morning. According to John Steel, one day Joe visited Seed with a gun and warned Seed to get out of town. Seed went.

The second generation of Pilates teachers

When Joe passed away in 1967, he left no will and had designated no line of succession for the "Pilates" work to carry on. Nevertheless, his work would remain. Clara continued to operate what was known as the "Pilates" Studio on Eighth Avenue in New York, where Romana Kryzanowska became the director around 1970. Kryzanowska had studied with Joe and Clara in the early 1940s and then, after a 15-year hiatus spent in Peru, returned to renew her studies.

Several students of Joe and Clara went on to open their own studios. Ron Fletcher was a Martha Graham dancer who studied and consulted with Joe from the 1940s on, in connection with a chronic knee ailment. Fletcher opened his studio in Los Angeles in 1970 and attracted many Hollywood stars. Clara was particularly enamored with Ron and she gave her blessing to him to carry on the "Pilates" work and name. Like Carola Trier, Fletcher brought some innovations and advancements to the "Pilates" work. His evolving variations on "Pilates" were inspired both by his years as a Martha Graham dancer and by another mentor, Yeichi Imura.

www.pilates.com/BBAPP/V/about/origins-of-pilates.html

Hello Alice!

Loved your information.  I have never seen the commercial about that particular machine, although I do catch alot of product commercials in the middle of the night while awake!   I have only known about Pilates done on a mat.   A link was recently shared about Pilates and it being a positive exercise, especially for those with medical conditions, and I shared my inability to get up off the floor easily.   Well, someone suggested doing it, at least initially, on the bed.

Lightbulb moment!!   

I do a lot of stretching before and after sleep and I walk on my treadmill several times a day, just about 10 minutes each time, to help with my Chronic Venous Insufficiency.   I go to the warm water pool a few times a week.   But it seems to me that I need to add in some Pilates and I hope I have a similar experience of it helping the fibro!

Take care and thank you!

That's so interesting about how we can get a mental block about things, and take a while to realize 'bed' instead of floor. 

And that your 'put in point' about Pilates has to do with mats only, as that's really the way to get some of the benefits but I think the machines were there from the beginning.  I thought of it in the past as the machines are what you pay for with an expensive trainer 1:1 and the mats are a way of having more people with an instructor so costs less per class. 

Thanks for adding in, Aimee, it's good to hear how you go about your activitiy.  I learned from a seminar once that the hormone system gets 'worked' by exercise so it's better to do several short exercise sessions per day in terms of reguating blood sugar and inspiring other things that have to do with hormones.  Sounds like adding that bed work has really rounded out your routine to be pretty good!  Good for you!

~~ Mardy