Pilates Is A Brain Game And A Body Game

Pilates is great for strengthening your body, but it is also great for your brain. Whether you're looking for a complex exercise to stop your mind from wandering, or you like to think about movements as you do them, there is a cerebral nature to Pilates that overthinkers and intellectuals may enjoy. Tune in to learn more!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. I'm Olivia, and I'll be your host. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual. You can support the podcast by visiting buymeacoffee. com/Olivia Let's learn something new.

[00:00:47] Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to be discussing Pilates as both a brain and body exercise. Of course, your brain is part of your body too. It's actually [00:01:00] the only body part that named itself. But there's an intellectual piece of doing Pilates that challenges the brain as much as it challenges your muscle strength and flexibility and your overall coordination.

[00:01:14] And I personally love this about Pilates because it's how I got into it in a lot of ways. And it's a the- this intellectual piece, this very thoughtful, mindful piece of Pilates allows a whole new group of people to really connect with exercise in a way that they may not have been able to do so before. Um, I had a client once tell me that Pilates is the grammar of movement because of the nuance and this very particular nature of it. 

[00:01:46] Because there are people who are very tuned into their bodies. They are very embodied. They're aware of themselves in space. They are tuned into how they feel, like very naturally. I think a lot [00:02:00] of dancers have this and totally a skill that you can hone, but just this idea that you can watch someone do something and then mirror it back to them. Like it is just a natural thing that some people are very good at doing, and I am not one of them. I'm a thinker and I like to think about what I'm doing as much or more than I like to do it.

[00:02:24] So this really complex nature of Pilates was a big draw for me and people who might have less movement experience, or maybe they find themselves in jobs that are very mentally stimulating, but physically very sedentary. This kind of nature of Pilates is a way for them to get into exercise because it gives your brain and your body something to do.

[00:02:54] So the things that I'm thinking about here are the fact that Pilates choreography is very nuanced and [00:03:00] complex. That there's a system, an integrated system that is Pilates and there's equipment and exercises that really scaffold on top of each other. 

[00:03:13] So if you look at the Pilates exercises on the mat, on the reformer, they build on each other and each exercise that you do prepares you for the next. If If you follow the classical Pilates order where you're doing the exercises in order every time you do them, you see that the first exercise on the mat is the hundred and the hundred is like the blueprint for a spinal flexion exercise, right? You're in flexion, you're curling, flexion. And you've got long legs, which is like a very challenging way to do an abdominal exercise, right? You've got the longest lever that you have. 

[00:03:55] Uh, then you go into the roll up, which is another spinal flexion exercise. You're bringing your [00:04:00] hands to your toes from lying down. Very cool. Then you do the roll over, which is bringing your toes to your head, which is spinal flexion but from the other end. Um, you do one leg circle, which is incorporating some rotation and you then you do rolling back- or rolling like a ball- which is spinal flexion, like maximum spinal flexion, so much spinal flexion that you can rock and roll around. And there's a bunch of rolling exercises and rolling like a ball um, prepares you for those rolling exercises, just like the hundred prepares you for every exercise where you're doing a chest lift.

[00:04:34] So just in those first five exercises in Matt Pilates, you've been introduced to several shapes and ideas and movements that you are going to revisit as you do more exercises. Of course, not every Pilates class follows the same order of exercises or follows the classical order. But even in a contemporary class where you are doing a different order to your exercises, you're [00:05:00] still going to have a structure where you are introducing something that is preparing you to do something different, like that, but bigger later on. So usually you start with a simple movement and then dial up that movement, increase the challenge, increase the complexity. 

[00:05:17] And we know that in exercise science, like any research where they're talking about what is a good warmup. The best warmup is a lower threshold version of the exercise that you're working on. So if you were working on pushups in a full plank, for example, you might practice doing pushups with your knees down, which has decreased the amount of load. Or you might do something like bird dog where you've decreased the load even more, but are still focusing on weight bearing in the hands and strength in the shoulder, which is going to serve you in that higher threshold version of a full plank and a pushup. The exercises build up. 

[00:05:58] So part of the [00:06:00] intrigue or the interest is the fact that there's foreshadows and there's callbacks kind of echoes to movements that you've done. And like our body can only move a finite number of ways. So it was fun for me at least in my brain to see how the things build on top of each other. Oh, this exercise is like that exercise, but I'm on my side or I'm kneeling or I'm on this other piece of equipment. 

[00:06:26] Beyond warming up and preparing our bodies for the next exercise and Pilates, we also get to play with all of this amazing equipment and apparatus that further challenge our proprioception, which is just a fancy word for our knowledge of ourselves in space. And I think that's super fun. 

[00:06:47] Like if you take swan, for example, so swan on the mat, you're lying on your stomach, you're lifting your head and your shoulders and your arms, and you're doing this back bend, right? So on the mat, 100 percent of your body is [00:07:00] supported, right? Your legs are totally resting on the mat. You started on the mat and then you lifted head, shoulders, and arms up. Amazing. Now we do swan there. 

[00:07:09] We can also do swan or swan press on the reformer where you're lying on your stomach on the long box. So the long box is still a long box, but there's a bunch of our body that's no longer supported. We have to support some of the weight of our legs.

[00:07:23] If you change apparatus again and you start working on the chair and doing swan, the chair, the seat of the chair where you're lying and doing your swan exercise is very small. It's like the smallest mat. So now you're responsible for even more of the weight of your legs. Even more of your body is in space and you have to be responsible for it. There's no equipment to support you. 

[00:07:46] You can even dial it up further. You can do swan on the ladder barrel where you have like the tiniest, like textbook size space of you that's connected to the mat so we can see how it's all the same exercise, but it's going to [00:08:00] feel different. It's going to challenge us differently, and it's going to challenge our brain to do the same movement, but in a different context, we have to concentrate. We can't take it for granted. 

[00:08:12] And because nothing is ever exactly the same, even though it's familiar, our brain has to stay engaged with what we're doing. And it's very all encompassing when we're practicing Pilates. 

[00:08:25] Coming up after the break, let's look at some of that more complex choreography, how that breaks down and how that also helps occupy your mind while you're doing Pilates. That's coming up next.

[00:08:44] Hi there. Enjoying the podcast? Me too. Make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening, so you get notified about new episodes. And visit buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts to support the show. There you can make a one time [00:09:00] donation or become a member with a donation of as little as $5 a month.

[00:09:05] Members get some awesome perks, including a shout out in the next episode, a monthly newsletter, a monthly zoom call with me and more. You can also visit links.OliviaBioni.com/affiliates and check out some sweet deals on products I use and love. Now back to the show.

[00:09:43] There are simple Pilates exercises and there are less simple Pilates exercises, but even the simplest exercise has so much intricacy in it. And I know there are different schools [00:10:00] of thought in Pilates and some people say, well, this is the way that you do that exercise. But honestly, regardless of the way that you do it, the fact that there is a way to do it at all, even if it's different from a way that someone else does it, is already fantastic for your brain.

[00:10:15] The fact that there's a breathing component to the movements, that where you inhale, where you exhale makes a difference. We're linking those movements together in a very particular way. It's endlessly interesting because it's, you're endlessly refining it. You're polishing it. You start with kind of a gross movement and by gross, I mean like a big movement, and then you start to, you know, refine, you get into the nitty gritty. It becomes about, you know, what is your toe doing? What is your hand doing? How are you breathing? You know, what is the next shape that we're making? And they really flow together and you just layer those movements up until you end up with this beautiful, [00:11:00] complex thing that you really had to learn in addition to just doing it, like you have to learn it in your body to make it flow when you perform that exercise. 

[00:11:11] So I think of exercises like boomerang on the mat where it has like a very particular way of doing it or control balance where, you know, in addition to this coordination element, like, like strenuous, like strength requirement to even do it. Like the way that you do it is just like, you have to concentrate. Like this is why one of the Pilates principles is like concentration because it requires a lot of brain power as well as like body power on the reformer. You've got beautiful exercises like snake and twist and coordination and overhead, all of these multi step movements that you have to learn in addition to mastering. 

[00:11:52] I often tell my clients that quote beginner, unquote Pilates it gets harder, the better [00:12:00] you get at Pilates because the more you understand the work that goes into even simple movements, even things like footwork, even things like, you know, the roll up, which is physically demanding, but not like incredibly complex, like, but there is still work to be had in it and you can really like dive in as deep as you'd like to go.

[00:12:20] So there are many ways to approach the work of Pilates and this way, thinking about it, getting your brain engaged in it is something that really resonates with me. I gravitate towards teachers who teach like this and I teach like this myself. And this way of working with Pilates connected with me because I am unapologetically a type a personality complete with racing thoughts and a healthy dose of anxiety and working in Pilates gives my brain, which is racing ahead to to do lists [00:13:00] for the rest of the week, grocery lists, you know, all of these things that I have to do, all of these things that have already happened, but it gives me something to focus on, to connect to.

[00:13:10] There are specific things that happen on the inhale and the exhale. There are movements that happen in a particular order. Think of doing teaser on the reformer, like there is an art to getting your torso and legs to lift. The exercises are also infinitely scalable, even beyond what Joseph Pilates had planned or written about, which offers new challenges after you master existing challenges.

[00:13:38] Because there's so much going on, there's so many layers, there's so many connections within the work, I find that I can stay engaged that even if my mind is wandering, at least it's wandering into adventure and Pilates land instead of my things that I have left to do. Because there's so many parallels in the shapes, in the movements, in [00:14:00] the pieces of equipment, how the springs are playing with you, how gravity is working with you and against you, all of this. Like there's so much to explore. And this is why people do Pilates for decades, because there's always something new to try. 

[00:14:15] And even if you master something, changing the equipment settings, changing the relation to gravity, changing the piece of equipment you're working on will give you a whole new array of things to explore. Um, something like standing leg press on the chair where you stand in front of the chair pedal. You take one foot onto the pedal, you push the pedal down and you bring the pedal back up. I never teach that on the same springs twice in a row for the same people because I don't want you to anticipate how heavy the spring is. I want your brain and your body to adapt to how heavy the spring is today so that you can work through it instead of just doing [00:15:00] the same thing over and over again, if that makes sense. 

[00:15:03] This is also part of the beauty of Pilates because Pilates is a system. It is a method. It's not meant to be done in isolation. You don't do these three exercises to cure your low back pain, which is very catchy from an advertising perspective, but not very realistic. Pilates is for your whole body. You do all of the exercises. You move the spine in all directions. You use all the pieces of equipment at hand, and that's how you do Pilates. All of those exercises, all of those pieces of equipment are working together to support you. It's all of those things together that makes Pilates so magical. For all of these reasons, I'll often say in classes that I teach that Pilates is a brain game as much as a body game because you are going to use your body. You are going to move your body. That is how exercise works. But you are also going to use your brain to keep you [00:16:00] connected and engaged in what you're doing. And that's, um, what I see as a missing component that other exercise systems don't always have this mental component. And I think it can be a really big draw. Pilates might be harder than you think, not just for your muscles, but also for your brain. 

[00:16:19] Huge thank you to all my supporters on Buy Me A Coffee. It has been such a treat meeting up with you for some coffee chats. If you're interested in hanging out with me and talking Pilates, visit that Buy Me A Coffee page and join the project. I look forward to connecting with you. Have a great couple of weeks and I'll talk to you again soon.

[00:16:49] Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. Be sure to check out the podcast [00:17:00] Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual and subscribe wherever you're listening. Interested in teaching Pilates too? Check out Pilates Teachers' Manual, available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

[00:17:13] I hope to see you next episode. Until next time.