“I was lying with my husband in bed the other day after sex, and he suggested we send you some flowers.”

A few years ago, I was working with a client who I’ll call Amanda. After a few months of working together, I noticed that Amanda was starting to have a particular look about her that had become familiar to me after years as a Pilates instructor. It was the look of a very satisfied woman. Amanda had been turned on to Pilates’ dirty little secret.

Pilates makes sex better.

Pilates instructors take this for granted, but most don’t advertise it. I am not exactly sure why. Perhaps there is a sense that doing so would be like announcing on a first date that you can get your legs behind your head; better to let it be a pleasant surprise somewhere down the road.

Practicing Pilates makes sex better for some obvious reasons. It makes you stronger and more flexible. It makes you feel more confident about your body by focusing on what it can do and not what it looks like, but it helps you have a smokin’ body anyway. Let’s be honest; for a woman, feeling hot yourself is as much of a turn on as thinking your partner is hot. Knowing your ass looks great in a pair of jeans goes a long way as an aphrodisiac. However, even a healthy dose of narcissism is not enough to fully explain why Pilates makes sex better for women and their partners.

The real secret is that Pilates strengthens your pelvic floor. The pelvic floor is a group of muscles in your pelvis that support your bladder and uterus. The bottom layer of muscle wraps around your vagina, anus and urethra. If you have ever tried to squeeze your partner’s penis during sex, you are contracting the muscles of the pelvic floor. Learning how to consciously control these muscles allows you to increase sensation during sex by getting a good grip, so to speak. The pelvic floor muscles also contract involuntarily during orgasm. The stronger these muscles are, the more intense the orgasm. Knowing how to relax these muscles is important too. If you want to maneuver your way into some of those crazy positions you see in sex books, or simply spread your legs really wide for those who prefer more tried and true methods, then you need to be able to relax the pelvic floor. Many women find that knowing how to contract and relax the pelvic floor muscles during sex allows them to have more control over when they reach orgasm.

If you go to the bookstore and buy one of those sex books or any book about orgasms (don’t forget to wink at the 20 year old kid behind the checkout with a smirk on his face), it will recommend doing Kegels. Kegels are simply isolated contractions of the pelvic floor muscles. These exercises were named after Dr. Arnold Kegel, an OB who came up with them as a way to prevent incontinence during pregnancy. Doing Kegels will also help you have stronger orgasms. However, Kegels alone are a bit limited.

Pilates has become so popular over past decade because it simply works better than most fitness regimes at creating functional strength and flexibility. One of the main reasons for this is that in Pilates, we rarely isolate muscles. Even a seemingly simple Pilates exercise, when done effectively, is using the entire body. Pilates works better because this is how the body actually functions in everyday life. Even opening a door is a complex negotiation amongst the muscles of the whole body, not just an isolation of the muscles of the arm to turn and pull. Kegels are great, but they merely exercise the pelvic floor in isolation. In order for the pelvic floor to reach optimum strength and flexibility, it needs to be exercised in movement. For sex, it’s not enough to know how to contract the pelvic floor when you are sitting on a chair concentrating on nothing else. You want to be able to give your partner a good squeeze when you are on your knees with your back arched with one hand gripping the headboard.

So the next time you see a girlfriend who has recently started taking Pilates, you will understand why she seems to have that perpetual grin.

My favorite flowers are calla lilies just in case anybody is wondering.

Read entire article on Huffington Post

What do Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and many seven-foot-tall professional basketball players have in common? They all do Pilates. If you have no clue what Pilates is, or need a reminder, check out my article “What Is Pilates?”

Although I’m a fan of anything that helps you live an active, healthy lifestyle, there are plenty of myths and misconceptions floating around about Pilates, kind of like with yoga. Here are the five most popular Pilates myths:

Myth 1: Pilates Is a Good Way to Lose Weight

In the article “Does Yoga Burn Calories,” you learn about several studies that have shown yoga to be relatively ineffective in directly burning calories or causing significant weight loss. While Pilates has definite benefits, its strongest suit is certainly not weight loss. A 2006 study found that body weight and body fat was not significantly affected in adult females using a regular Pilates routine, and a 2004 study found that Pilates does help improve flexibility, but does not significantly affect body composition, even after six months of training. So when it comes to pure calorie burning and fat loss, running on a treadmill, riding a bike or lifting weights will be more effective than Pilates.

But because Pilates does such a good job strengthening your core, reducing risk of injury and improving your flexibility, it will help keep you from getting sidelined with an injury — which means you can work out more consistently. You may also be more likely to exercise in other ways, since you often find yourself visiting a gym or a health club to take Pilates class.

Myth 2: Pilates Is Only for Women

Because it does a good job strengthening lower abdominal and pelvic muscles that are important for a woman’s childbearing, reproductive and urinary function, or because it doesn’t involve heavy steel, grunting or large amounts of weight, Pilates is often perceived as a “women’s only” activity.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, Pilates was invented by a man (Joseph Pilates). Secondly, plenty of male athletes (including yours truly) use Pilates moves as a perfect complement to weight training and cardio. Want more proof? How about Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Hugh Grant and many other male athletes and celebrities? They use Pilates to maintain core strength, flexibility and function.

Myth 3: You Need Special Machines for Pilates

It’s true that one type of Pilates workout requires the use of special machines — those strange-looking contraptions with unusual names like the Reformer, the Cadillac and the Wunda chair. These collections of springs, bars, pulleys and straps can give you a productive workout, but they’re not completely necessary, because there is another type of Pilates that is done on a simple mat.

All of the basic movement principles of Pilates can be incorporated into a mat workout. So you don’t need to find a special Pilates studio or buy complex and expensive equipment to get the benefits of Pilates.

Myth 4: Pilates Will Make You a Lot Stronger

Pilates will significantly improve your abdominal muscular endurance, since you will spend much of a Pilates class performing abdominal, lower back and core specific exercises. If you are starting at a lower fitness level or with a weak core, you can definitely make these areas stronger with Pilates.

But you should not rely upon Pilates as a way to improve your full body strength, especially if you’re only doing mat workouts. This is because to get a muscle, joint or bone stronger, you must expose that area of your body to a stressful demand, like lifting overhead for stronger shoulders, pushing with your legs forstronger thighs or extending and flexing for stronger arms.

It’s true that in many machine-based Pilates workouts, like a “Reformer” class, you may find yourself performing these activities. But the average Pilates class at a gym focuses only on your abdominal or low back muscular endurance and your flexibility — and not on full body strength.

So I’d highly recommend that you do a full-body weight training routine two to three times per week if Pilates is your only other primary exercise method. And don’t forget to include cardiovascular intervals as well, since Pilates does not involve much cardiovascular work… unless you attend one of the terrific classes at Pilates Pro Works where each Reformer class includes cardiovascular interludes in order to get a full body workout.

Myth 5: Pilates Is Only for Your Abs

As you’ve learned in this article, Pilates is a good way to strengthen all the different sections of your abdominals, which is an important part of getting a flat stomach.

But in addition to strengthening your core, Pilates has additional benefits — primarily, the six principles that a good Pilates class should be based upon are:

1. Centering — Bringing the focus to the center of your body, which can teach you how to use your core muscles to generate athletic or forceful movements.
2. Concentration — Bringing full attention to each exercise and learning how to engage in high-quality focus.
3. Control — Performing a movement with control and fluidity, which can teach you how to move more gracefully.
4. Precision — Having self-awareness of your body’s tiny movements and knowing the alignment of one body part relative to other body parts and how your body is moving through space — which can help with athleticism.
5. Breath — Using a very full breath in your exercises and thinking of your lungs as a bellows which strongly pump air fully in and out of your body, which you can use in other activities such as stress relief or sports.
6. Flow — Performing your movements in a flowing, graceful manner, which can help you become a better dancer or athlete, or even simply improve your everyday posture.

As you can see, Pilates can help make your abs stronger or give you better muscular endurance in your core. It can also help you focus, breathe and move with more grace and flexibility. In a Reformer class, you can get stronger too. But Pilates won’t help you shed significant weight and a Pilates mat class will not make your entire body significantly stronger.

The bottom line: Pilates is great, but don’t rely on it as your primary workout, and especially don’t rely on it to burn significant amounts of fat.

Read entire article on Huffington Post.

For more by Ben Greenfield, click here.

For more on fitness and exercise, click here.

Ben Greenfield is a fitness and triathlon expert and host of the Get-Fit Guy podcast on the Quick and Dirty Tips network. His book, “Get-Fit Guy’s Guide to Achieving Your Ideal Body — A Workout Plan for Your Unique Shape,” will be published by St. Martin’s Press on May 8, 2012.

Follow Ben Greenfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GetFitGuy

• On Mondays @ 11 a.m., the Pilates Place SOBE is introducing a new Intermediate Jumpboard & Chair class
• On Tuesdays @ 11 a.m., an Intermediate Level Equipment class will replace the Jumpboard & Chair class
• On Wednesdays @ 11 a.m., an Intermediate Jumpboard & Chair class will replace the Intermediate Level class

To view the new schedule, go to:  http://thepilatesplacesobe.com/schedule

Stay tuned as the Pilates Place SOBE plans to introduce more classes soon!

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Actress Sandra Bullock showed off her Pilates-toned physique in a glittery gold dress at the 2011 amfAR gala at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles on Oct. 27.AmFar, the Foundation for AIDs Research, is a nonprofit organization that supports AIDS research and HIV prevention.

Pilates, Kickboxing & Strength Training

The 57″ Bullock, 47, has said she maintains her svelte figure by working out regularly and watching her diet.“I do a lot of Pilates, kick-boxing and weight training in Los Angeles, and when I’m in Austin I run or ride my bike,” said Sandra, who splits her time between L.A. and her Texas ranch.

“If I can work out every day, I will.”

Bullock showed off the results of her hard work in a much talked-about nude scene in the 2009 comedy The Proposal(which co-starred with her longtime friend Ryan Reynolds).

“People ask, ‘How do actresses do it [stay so fit]?’ Um, they pay us to do this in order to look good on film,” she said.

via Sandra Bullock, 47, wows red carpet at AIDS benefit gala – National Celebrity Fitness and Health | Examiner.com.

MADONNA

When Madonna had horse accident, she was exercising Pilates to speed up recovery process, and then she said “I used to be a freak about doing yoga, but I had to do a lot of Pilates to rehabilitate my shoulder joint and get the use of my arm back”. When she was in Chicago she rented high-tech Pilates equipment from Body Endevors. Body Endevors have Pilates equipment such as Reformer and are Power Pilates affiliate, so Madonna did probably exercise Power Pilates!

KATE WINSLET

As a star at age 36 she looks gorgeous, by a little help of Pilates. According to TimesOnline in UK, she owes her beautiful figure to “daily home workout DVDs and 10-minute Pilates sessions” and good diet program. That well-formed sexy shoulders certainly are benefit of Pilates.

HUGH GRANT

When he turned 50 he started to take care about his health, and started to do Pilates. “I’ve actually started to do Pilates to try to keep me young. I go to a place where there are all these attractive young girls and just the one sad, hung-over old man, who is me.” He definitely looks younger than he actually is. Pilates actually kept him from aging. Oh, yes he also said “Now I have muscles of steel and could easily deal with giving birth.”

 
 
JENNIFER ANISTON

A star of popular “Friends” and today well known movie actor once said about pilates. “I’m a Pilates person. It’s great. I had a hip problem. I had a chronic back, a pinched nerve and a hip problem and it’s completely solved all of it. I love it. It makes me feel like I’m taller.”

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

She is known as “The Body.” Lee Curtis has every so often says that she got into great shape thankfully to Pilates, a low impact workout that shapes the body as it strengthens and tones muscles.

And there is no end to this list Mari Winsor clientele included people like: Vanessa Williams, Daisy Fuentes, Melanie Griffith, Elizabeth Berkeley, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Courtney Thorne-Smith.

via 5 Celebrities that do Pilates | Pilates Exercises.

September 19, 2011

Oscar winner Kate Winslet and actress Sofia Vergara ruled the red carpet at the 2011 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles Sept. 18, sporting glamorous, skin-tight gowns that showed off their luscious curves.

Kate Once Weighed 200 Lbs. & Abused Diet Pills

The 5’6″ Winslet, who once topped the scales at 200 pounds, looked fit and shapely in a body-hugging red Elie Saab dress. Kate, who once abused laxatives and diet pills as a teen, is now more leaner and healthier than ever, thanks to portion control and regular Pilates workouts at home.

“I just do my own stuff at home with the help of DVDs. A little bit of Pilates,” Winslet, 36, has said. “And just recently I started running, but I’m not very good.

“I have cellulite, I don’t go to the gym because I don’t have time but I do Pilates work out DVDs for 20 minutes or more everyday at home.”

Sofia Overcame Thyroid Cancer

Vergara, 39, who recently overcame thyroid cancer, was stunning in a coral one-shouldered Vera Wang gown with chiffon draping and tumbled tulle.

The 5’7″ Sofia maintains her sexy 125-pound bikini body by doing a cardio toning/strength-training program and Physique 57 workouts several times a week.

“Oh, I hate [working out]!” Vergara has said. “But I also know that at my age — I’m almost 40! — I have to do it to maintain my figure.”

via Kate Winslet and Sofia Vergara rule the red carpet at 2011 Emmy Awards – National Celebrity Fitness and Health | Examiner.com.

Team USA beat Uruguay 118-79. As a tribute, Lebron threw up the roc. Team USA went on to clinch the gold by beating Argentina 118-81 to win the FIBA Americas championship qualifying Team USA for a spot in the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing China. At the awards ceremony Lebron threw up the roc again.

When asked what does it mean? James replied: “It’s a Pilates move. I can never remember the names of all the moves, so I just give them my own names, such as “Jesus H” and “no way in hell.” Anyway, there’s one exercise on thereformer — I think the original name is shaving or shave to the head or something — where you make a triangle with your hands on your forehead and then extend your arms at a 45 degree angle. When my Pilates instructor first showed me, I just called it the roc to make it easier.”

“This team for the USA is one of the best USA teams,” Argentina coach Sergio Hernandez said. I like this USA team.” “They play so hard.

They have great players like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd, but they play together so well and they play great defense. It is a pleasure to play against them.

“Bryant is in the best shape of his life. He’s dropped eighteen pounds, has totally revised his diet, and is traveling with his own personal Pilates instructor. “I wore out his ass,” Kobe bragged.  Long time Pilates Buff Jason Kidd Named was just named USA Basketball’s 2007 Male Athlete of the Year.

“You don’t like to single guys out, but LeBron’s performance in the finals was one of the best ones in an international game that a U.S. player has had,” U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “He was big-time today.”

Engage your core like never before incorporate Pilates into your workout today.

via Pilates Enhances Performance Of Olympic USA Basketball | Pilates Blog.

Come join us The Pilates Place for fun and exciting afternoon trapezing in bayfront park from 1 – 3 pm. We only have 10 spaces left so let us know at 305-316-3341 if you want to come.  Impress us with your core strength and flexibility.

AS a six-day-a-week exerciser who favors high-intensity workouts, I consider the seventh day enough rest. But it turns out that moving even more might be a smarter way to let my muscles recover and help me to push myself harder in the gym.

New York City has several workout options for people like me who sometimes overdo it. These classes say they help keep regular exercisers injury free and allow them to continue their strenuous routines through use of light movement and active stretching to get rid of tightness in the body.

This year Crunch gyms introduced the hourlong BodyArt, created by a physical therapist, Robert Steinbacher, to loosen muscles through a combination of cardio, yoga and Pilates. Tensions in the thigh muscles are released, for example, by squatting rapidly and breathing deeply to the backdrop of upbeat music and then holding the squat for several seconds. Calves are worked through the classic yoga downward dog and other moves.

Brandon Graham, 29, a writer who lives in Harlem, takes two BodyArt classes a week in addition to running and said that as a result of the sessions, “I have less lower back pain than I ever did and more flexibility, so I can run more.”

This fall Equinox gyms are introducing a recovery-style class with active stretching called Thread. The 30- to 45-minute sessions increase circulation by gently stretching muscles in one movement pattern. To open hip flexors, for example, students will get into a kneeling lunge and reach an arm and shoulder across the opposite thigh several times to warm them up before holding the stretch. Meanwhile instructors will prompt them to say phrases like “let go” and “ahh,” so they can mentally release tension.

Other recovery classes rely more on props. The Restore, Renew and Rebuild class at DL Fit, a SoHo Pilates center, and the Body Rolling classes at Yamuna, a downtown fitness studio, use balls to help replenish fatigued bodies. To open hips, for example, students might lie on their stomachs with a ball on each side of the hip flexors and try to sink into it for one to two minutes.

Daniel Loigerot, the owner of DL Fit, said that the gentle stress applied on the muscles released the tension from overexercising. “When you hold tension in the muscles, you are going to be sluggish and not perform as well, and these movements get rid of that, so you can work out at your optimum.”

Elizabeth Wilens, 32, a real estate developer, has been a Restore loyalist for four years and said that her persistent injuries from weightlifting had disappeared. “I used to get such severe pain in my glutes that I couldn’t work out at all, and as someone addicted to exercising, that was torture.”

Though attractively packaged to lure in gym rats like me, these classes aren’t just clever marketing, said Neal Pire, an exercise physiologist. He likens them to a shorter, easier run to help runners recover from a longer, faster one the day before. “There is real validity to recovery workouts because they increase circulation and remove muscle spasms,” he said. “They work you out so you can work out hard again.”

via Pilates and Exercises Help Those Who Overdo Workouts – NYTimes.com.

Hear that? Pilates just got a ringing endorsement.

The Daily Mail reports that Pippa Middleton, sister of Duchess Catherine of Cambridge, passes her free time at Parson’s Green Pilates Studio in London — in fact, she wrote the following testimonial for the exercise center:

“As someone who is always ‘on the go’, Pilates has been a wonderful escape from my busy lifestyle in London. Whether it’s 7am in the morning or 7pm at night I always leave feeling calm, refreshed and invigorated. Over the past few months I have noticed a huge difference in my core strength and posture and couldn’t recommend Margot more highly as an instructor. From breathing techniques, muscle toning to overall flexibility and relaxation, my Pilates sessions have become something of a weekly necessity that keeps me fit, happy and energized.”

Fit, happy, energized and the subject of a Facebook group with 221,714 members as of this posting. And the 27-year-old’s posterior might have sparked an increase in butt-lifting procedures in the UK, which you can read all about here.

UsMagazine.com adds that Pippa also “gets her cardio on with swimming, jogging, tennis and skiing.”

Pippa’s Workout Secret

via Pippa Middleton: Pilates Is A Weekly Necessity (VIDEO).