Since Joseph Pilates developed the system, specialist fitness centers, coaches and teachers have become available throughout the United States and the developed world.

The system caters for all adult age groups, whether it using workouts that promote muscle building for athletes, body toning exercises to enhance that glamorous look, or training schedules that can correct the bad posture that leads to spinal and other related problems.

Irrespective of age and physical disabilities the practice of the appropriate Pilates exercise schedule can be life enhancing to those that are prepared to take the trouble to explore the variety of benefits and routines that are offered by the system and then act upon the most suitable for their circumstances.

These can vary between as little as fifteen minutes a day, perhaps to alleviate a painful back condition to a full scale regime to improve and enhance a sporting aspiration.

Pilates is not only a physical improvement system but also has an important psychological input.

Joseph Pilates believed that an individual's mental attitude to the fitness and development of the physical body was as important as the exercises and training to which it was subject. In other words having the right mental attitude to whatever you want to achieve with your body.

There are a number of inexpensive devices that will help with the Pilates experience but essentially the Pilates system is a ?hands on? opportunity to improve those areas of the body that only you feel has the need to benefit.

Joseph Pilates, Born in Germany in 1880, was a fitness and exercise enthusiast who toned his body to a peak of physical condition. He was an accomplished skier, gymnast, diver, involved in martial arts and a trained nurse.

He worked in Britain as a boxer and circus artiste before the outbreak of war in 1914 and was interned for the duration with other prisoners of war on the Isle of Man.

He began to investigate ways to restore the survivors of the 1918 flu epidemic (that led to the death of more people than the Great War), to fitness and developed an exercise regime that could be carried out in an isolation area. A key item of Pilates equipment is based on a hospital bed.

After the war he trained Max Schmelling, the German world heavyweight boxing champion, and other boxers before emigrating to the US and opening a training workshop in New York in 1926. Of the 500 precise exercises that Pilates developed, perhaps the best known are those that have proved successful in alleviating spinal problems by correcting bad posture that leads to spinal misalignment.

Today exponents and practitioners have carried on developing exercise and fitness practices based upon Joseph Pilates' philosophy and formula.

Explore the Pilates system, remember it has worked for countless others, if you have the dedication it will work for you, whatever your physical aspirations are there is a Pilates system that could benefit you.

Benefits

Posture improvement

? Alleviate back pain

? Tone your body

? Enhance your energy

? Be fit and healthier

?Get the body you've always wanted ? Look younger

Copyright 2006 Jaks Lloyd