CAN you practise Pilates every day? As Pilates instructors we get asked this question a lot. Here's our view on it:
If you've come from a gym background, you'd be used to the philosophy that you need a rest day between workouts to allow the muscles to recover. Particularly with strength or weight training, the objective of these workouts is to cause tiny little micro tears in the muscle, then as these tears recover, the muscles gradually become stronger. In fact, the rest and recovery phase is just as important as the exercise phase in terms of building muscle.
However, with Pilates, we focus on a full body workout with lower intensity and lower repetitions. Joseph Pilates himself said "Contrology [Pilates] is not a fatiguing system of dull, boring, abhorred exercises repeated daily ad-nauseam. By providing variety within the workouts, ensuring not to over-stress one particular body part in a single session, and not repeating the same routine over and over again, Pilates provides a regime that can be safely undertaken daily.
Now having said that, you don't HAVE to do Pilates every day to get results! Joseph Pilates has been quoted as recommending performing Pilates exercises four times per week for optimal results. This may mean that you do a higher intensity session 3-4 times per week and balance it out with a lighter stretching or shorter movement session on the other days. Or if your body is feeling fatigued and run down, having a day off may be the best way for you to recoup and perform at your best for the next session.
Providing there is variety, a balance of muscle groups used, a balance in the range of movements between flexion, extension and rotation, and varying levels of intensity, you can safely incorporate Pilates into your daily routine.
We have a vast range of online workouts including in our weekly membership, including online Pilates classes, online Barre classes, online HIIT workouts, online Yoga classes, online Stretch classes and Prenatal Pilates online classes & Postnatal Pilates online classes. Inside these categories we have even more subsections. For example; our Pilates classes at home category can be broken up into: Pilates Matwork, Pilates with Props, Pilates Basics, Advanced Matwork and Pilates Interval Training. Therefore you absolutely have the ability to continually mix it up!
I'm sure you've all heard Joe Pilates most famous quote:
“In 10 sessions you will feel the difference. In 20 sessions you will see the difference. And in 30 sessions you will have a whole new body.
To get these results, you need to commit and make Pilates a permanent and consistent feature in your weekly exercise regime. Benefits don't come without the work, but we are here to help motivate you to do the work!
To view snippets of our online Pilates workouts, click here to see our YouTube channel and subscribe!
Need some awesome beats to help you workout? We have got you covered with our April Playlists!
Want some Pilates props to add variety to your workouts? We have the essential list of Props here!
