The two easiest ways of kidding yourself that you are getting better at pilates are that you are doing more exercises and that it feels like it’s getting easier. Of course, as you improve you will add more exercises and aspects of the training will get more familiar, though, if you do it properly, it will never get “easy”.

How you measure whether you are getting more advanced at Pilates depends where you start from – a stiff 50 year old man is going to look different from an injured female ballet dancer in the way that their physical training will develop. Nevertheless, there are certain more general aspects in common.

Pilates Improves Your Relationship With Your Body

When you start training you probably don’t have much powerhouse strength or alignment and we start by working on this and also by beginning to re-establish correct movement in the back. For some people that means the back needs to get stronger to stop slumping, while for others it is about loosening up so it can move naturally.

This initial stage of training will start to create changes in your body as well as alter your perception of your body. You may start to notice a difference in your body shape, become aware of your everyday posture and even get comments from people you know.

When Pilates gets out of the studio and into your body like this it is a sign that you are advancing. This may be that you no longer slump when watching TV, that you have more strength for golf or carrying the baby or that you just feel better and less achy.

Pilates Improves the Relationship Between Your Mind and Body

At the basic level we find your power house, at the intermediate level we deepen it and at the advanced level we increase its stamina. However, being advanced is not simply about being physically strong enough to sustain your power house for 55 minutes without interruption. It is as much about progress in the principles of pilates, so that you can keep your mind concentrated in your body for that long.

In terms of the “pilates principles” concentration is maintaining precision and control from the centre with increased flow and focus on the breath. This concentration is how the pilates method achieves the mind-body connection.

With increased concentration you become wholly focused on and committed to the present moment, moving without rushing or resting and with no thoughts beyond what you are doing. This “meditation in movement”, as our students will testify, does not have much of the airy float that the word “meditation” often suggests.

This complete coordination of body, mind and spirit is the sign of advanced pilates and when it becomes subconscious and its rhythm carries through to all your movements then you know that you have got better at pilates. 

In Classical Pilates we have an order of exercises which we follow week after week, which generally changes only as we add new exercises. There are a number of advantages to this and one main disadvantage.

A Set Order of Pilates Mat Exercises Helps Your Progress

There are several advantages of following a set order of exercises. It helps with memorization if the same exercises always follow each other and this subconscious learning of the order enables your body to absorb the exercises without your brain having to think too much about what happens next.

This enables you to add in layers of depth and sophistication as you progress through the intermediate level, and by the time you are advanced you can surrender to the practice in a way which can create a very special state of mind – the “movement as meditation” which is typical of advanced pilates practitioners.

Some teachers work hard to entertain their students with new exercises. We don’t think this is necessary. After all, never making progress because you never stop working on new “choreography” and never feeling or seeing changes in your body is much more boring than doing the same exercises all the time.

A Set Order of Pilates Mat Exercises Gives You a Balanced Workout

The sequence that we use is balanced and progressive, containing its own warm up within the workout itself and building over time as you add in exercises to progress from basic to intermediate and intermediate to advanced.

This means that every part of the body is worked and you don’t only do the things you like and do well, and ignore the things which you need to do, but dislike.

A set order gives you a structure to work inside, meaning that even if you are feeling uninspired then you have something that will give you the discipline to have a productive and transformative time on the mat.

Disadvantages of a Set Order of Pilates Mat Exercises

Surprisingly, after years of practicing the same order of exercises I do not find boredom an issue. The deep connection between mind and body that is possible when you follow a “ritual” order is far more interesting than the superficial stimulus of changing the exercises all the time.

There are, in fact, many ways of finding variety in the exercises: different tempo, different focus (e.g. breath, working the wings, lower stomach, stretch, strength, flow, concentration etc.), different forms of the same exercise and the use of the magic circle means that the mat work can be done in many different ways.

The mat can also be done with different endings (e.g. the wall, standing arm weights, rowings on the mat, magic circle and other standing exercises).

The main disadvantage with simply doing the mat exercises all the time is that there are fewer resources for dealing with any particular day’s issues and needs. It is, of course, possible to omit or modify exercises if they are going to create problems for your body on a particular day, but the mat is not the whole system, it is a part of it.

As important as the mat work is, it really helps the body to use the springs and have the different focus of the apparatus.

Joe Pilates taught people how to use their bodies better. His students ranged from top level dancers through the average man on the street to injured people. You just went to him and he taught you. But now when you look on the web you find a huge range of different approaches, all promising different things, aiming at different markets and it is sometimes very confusing.

Clinical or Rehab Pilates

Some kinds of pilates are aimed specifically at those looking for exercise to do after an injury. There are often mat classes where there is a very gentle type of stretching exercise and some core work. Sometimes these are run by physios for their patients, and are a great way for people to learn their physical therapy exercises (very often the exercises done in these classes owe as much, or more, to physiotherapy as they do to Joe Pilates).

Pilates is not the product of modern clinical physiotherapy. If you need physical therapy you should go to a physical therapist – some of them use pilates or pilates influenced techniques. But you should be clear that no pilates teacher who is not also trained as a physical therapist can give you therapy.

This type of exercise class is obviously very useful, but sometimes people go to and stay in “rehab” classes when there is nothing actually wrong with them. Being unfit and “having some back pain” (along with 80% of the population) does not mean you need rehab. It means you need to do some exercise.

If you are basically well and go to a class designed for people with more serious injury you may never come out of your comfort zone which means your body won’t change. A clinical group may be a good place to start, but if you stay in that setting when it’s not appropriate, you give yourself no room for improvement or progress.

Cardio or “Bootcamp” Pilates

At the other extreme some market their classes as “cardio” or “bootcamp” pilates, promising clients a mix of cardio and strengthening exercises in light airy studios. The main goal is to make people sweat and feel they have had a good workout. This kind of pilates is often found in gyms (mat classes) and there are also some studios which use this model, normally featuring group reformer classes as these are more prestigious than “just doing pilates mat” and can be priced more highly. 

Doing vigorous exercise is a very good thing for many people to do – in the west we are generally far too sedentary and it is very bad for our bodies. However, when groups are large and the main goal is for people to “feel the burn” what often suffers is the precision and focus which makes pilates different from a circuit class. People have different bodies and some of us have old injuries or weaknesses and if these factors are not taken into account the result can do more harm than good. 

Classical or Pure Pilates

Both clinical and “cardio” pilates are offshoots of the pilates that Joe Pilates taught (different sorts of clinical pilates are the result of his work being combined with differing theories on physiotherapy and “cardio pilates” is influenced by gym culture and circuit classes). 

The Classical approach encompasses everything from rehab work with very injured people to the most demanding athletic forms of exercise that most people will experience. Like Joe Pilates we just teach people to use their bodies better, wherever they start from. 

Despite bizarre claims to the contrary, classical pilates is not stuck in the 1950s. The method continued developing during his lifetime well into the 1960s and then his wife Clara continued teaching after his death alongside Romana Kryzanowska, his chosen successor. 

Some of the exercises he taught have been retired or made “super advanced” in the decades since his death, but traditional pilates continues to work on the basis that if it ain´t broke, then there is little need to fix it. Pilates teachers are not physiotherapists and pilates is not physiotherapy, but the Pilates method of conditioning the body is still around because it has an undeniable track record of making people’s bodies move, feel and look better.

Similarities Between Pilates and Yoga

Pilates and yoga are often confused by those who do not know either of them, and this is understandable as they have a number of exercises which look similar due to Pilates and yoga´s common origins. Both are best known primarily through their mat work.

Both emphasise the mind-body connection and create awareness, and the classical pilates principles (centre, control, concentration, precision, breath and flow) could be talking about either of the two (at least without explanation of exactly what was meant).

Both Pilates and yoga build strength and flexibility, but in different ways and with different emphases. 

Differences Between Pilates and Yoga: The Pilates Teaser vs The Yoga Lotus

The differences between Pilates and yoga can be seen by comparing the two exercises which are emblematic of the two disciplines – Pilates´ teaser and yoga’s Lotus pose. 

The Teaser: Flowing Movement from a Strong Centre

The teaser is movement from the centre of the body to reach point of balance where you stay for an instant then roll down. The teaser is primarily movement and you find the stillness and balance inside. We do only a few repetitions, then move on to the next exercise – there are no long holds. There are many different versions of the teaser (I can immediately think of 18) which is regularly done on the reformer, Cadillac, spine corrector, wunda chair and the mat. The Mat teaser is the hardest and all the other versions prepare the body for the version without equipment. 

The goal is physical fitness and control of the body with the mind, which enables you to have an active, full life and achieve happiness.

The Lotus: Physical Stillness Leading to Meditation 

The lotus is a static posture where there is no visible movement of the body, only internal movement to keep alignment. It is meant to be held for a long time. The flexibility needed for it is much greater than needed for almost all pilates, which does not take the legs out of the joint. The preparation for it is not with equipment, though some types of Yoga use a block or folded blanket to make it easier. 

The goal is meditation and union of the mind and body.





Pilates is absolutely not a "type of yoga" any more than yoga is a type of pilates. They developed quite separately until the last few decades, when their popularity in the west has led to a number of hybrids. However, the traditional forms of both work towards quite different goals. 

Pilates Works with Bodies That Are Injured

Many people seek out pilates as it has been recommended as an appropriate exercise for people in rehab from injury or recovering after pregnancy. This connection is made especially plausible as some physios have absorbed pilates exercises into their own work.

Pilates has a long record of working with injured bodies, but it does not treat injuries and it is not physiotherapy. Pilates is a way of training the body and mind and its goals are not dictated by physiotherapy. Pilates is corrective exercise, not therapy.

Pilates is Not Therapy

Therapy concentrates on the injury, pilates on training the uninjured rest of the body. Therapy can work with people who are in a great deal of pain and unable to function normally, but if you can’t walk into the pilates studio, then in most cases you shouldn’t be doing pilates right now. Therapy stops when you get better, pilates is the ongoing work of decades. Therapy is something done to a patient, Pilates is something the student does for themselves.

A pilates teacher is no more qualified to do physiotherapy than a physiotherapist is qualified to teach pilates. They are really not the same thing.

Pilates Keeps Your Body Fit

Many of our ongoing clients started pilates because of rehabilitation, whether from pregnancy or serious physical injury. They keep doing it because they have found that it keeps their body working better, reducing their pain and improving their fitness.

To start with it is better to work on the equipment as it gives you an extra set of muscles to support you and help you get stronger before you move to the mat. The mat gives you no support or help – a great challenge, but one that shouldn´t be jumped into straight away by everyone.

Why are there so many similarities between Pilates and yoga? Historically the answer is not found, as sometimes claimed, in the idea that Pilates “learned yoga”, but in the development of modern yoga and the relationship that both yoga and pilates have with physical culture.

Physical Practices In Classical and Modern Yoga

Classical Indian yoga unquestionably had physical practices, though they were by no means the most important thing about it. Even the medieval Hatha Yoga Pradipika (one of the most important pre-modern books on hatha yoga) only lists a handful of asana and has a lot more to say about breathing and other subjects no longer considered “hatha yoga”.

The yoga which was exported to the West by Vivekananda and others at the end of the C19 was almost totally lacking any physical component, probably in part as a reaction to Western stereotypes about “performing yogins” (yoga contortionists who performed in the streets or shows),

Yet yoga in the west went from being almost 100% philosophical at the end of the C19 to mostly physical in its late C20 and early C21 incarnation. How did this change happen in Western Yoga?

Nationalistic Physical Culture in India

The answer is, surprisingly, found in the influence of western physical culture in India, where the exercises taught by Pehr Henrik Ling, Eugen Sandow and the methods used by the Indian YMCA under H.C. Buck all had an impact on modern yoga. 

These European systems were absorbed by Indians and combined with the native yoga traditions, to create a nationalistic fitness programme from a fusion of European physical culture and traditional hatha yoga. It is this which forms the base of much modern posture practice as found in the west. 

This is not the case with all yoga, but certainly the various styles of yoga which grew out of the teaching of Krishnamacharya (such as Iyengar and Astanga) and Bikram yoga reflect this influence (Bikram Choudhury´s guru, Bishnu Ghosh co-authored a book called “Muscle Control and Barbell Exercises”). 

Pilates and Modern Yoga: A Family Resemblance 

The similarities between Pilates and yoga are due primarily to the independent influence of physical culture on Pilates and modern hatha yoga and only incidentally, if at all, due to the influence of modern hatha yoga on Joseph Pilates. Pilates developed his system before the physical practices were part of Western yoga: he simply had no access to them. Pilates and yoga are half brothers. 

The similarities between the two disciplines are real, not accidental, but superficially similar looking exercises are used in the two systems in different ways and have different goals. The more deeply Pilates and modern hatha yoga are understood in their own terms, the more aware we become of how different they are in the way they work the human body. 

The research behind this is found in Yoga Body. The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton. Oxford University Press, USA, 2010. I was a member of the Cambridge University Modern Yoga Reading Group run by Mark and his then supervisor Elizabeth de Michelis in 2004

Working with Pilates Apparatus 

One of the marks of the classical Pilates method is the use of the equipment (traditionally called “apparatus”) that Joseph Pilates designed. He first developed the mat work and then later the use of apparatus to supplement it; mat work can be difficult to do correctly and so you use apparatus to increase the strength, flexibility and control of your body. 

If you need that extra bit of help the springs act as extra muscles enabling your body to absorb the pilates way of using the body ("the method") more quickly. Then you can return to the mat and are able to do it more deeply. 

Why Work With Pilates Equipment?

The apparatus gives shape to the body as well as supporting and strengthening the work of the power house which helps you progress faster. Only apparatus built according to the original designs of Joseph Pilates will do exactly what he wanted it to do, because he designed both the exercises and the apparatus together and therefore all substantial changes to the apparatus change the exercises to some degree.

These modified machines may still be used for physiotherapy, but whenever a major change is made to the apparatus some element of the original system is lost. Many of the “improvements” made by some manufacturers make it impossible to do the exercises Joe Pilates invented in the way that he taught them: you can´t do Pilates on them. 

How to Work With Pilates Equipment

The most import thing to understand about how to work with pilates apparatus is that the emphasis is always on what the body is doing, not what the apparatus is doing. The apparatus does not do the work of increasing the strength, flexibility and control of the body for you: it helps you do it by encouraging correct body position through the shape of the apparatus and by encouraging correct use of the power house through the resistance of the springs.

However, if your body is not working correctly within the apparatus then very little is gained and the Pilates method is not being taught. The apparatus gives shape and structure to the body as it moves by providing strategic support for the body, encouraging correct alignment and helping develop particular muscle groups and patterns of movement. Unless these things are taught with precision, nothing is gained from using apparatus.