{"id":9082,"date":"2022-07-07T17:58:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T14:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=9082"},"modified":"2022-07-07T17:58:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T14:58:16","slug":"joseph-pilates-and-the-history-of-pilates-workout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=9082","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Pilates and the History of “Pilates” Workout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joseph Pilates is the creator of the famous exercise method that bears his name. “Pilates”. He was a sickly child and nothing foretold not only that he would become involved in gymnastics but also what he would create. Joseph Ubertus Pilates was born in December 1883 in M\u00f6nchengladbach, Germany. Friedrich’s father was born in Greece and was a metal worker who loved gymnastics.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When Joseph was young, he was a sickly child and everyone said that he did not have many years of life ahead of him. He was asthmatic, suffered from rickets and suffered from rheumatic fever. His childhood made him stubborn and Joseph made it his life’s goal to improve his physical strength. His father introduced him to body building (in the middle of the era) while he also started boxing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the circus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1912 Joseph left Germany and went to settle in England. He tried to open a gym but the conditions were not ripe. So in order to survive he became a professional boxer. At the same time, because with boxing, sometimes he made money and sometimes not, he found a vacant position in a circus and worked there as well. In the company of the jugglers, but especially with the acrobats, he watched their every move which years later would serve him for his method.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When he started to make a name for himself in boxing, he was hired by Scotland Yard to train new police officers in self-defence. He did all this for only two years, because in 1914 World War I broke out and his life would be turned upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First World War<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a German citizen residing in Britain, at the outbreak of war Pilates was in trouble. Along with other Germans (because his country was at war with the English) he was arrested and imprisoned in Lancaster Castle. The days were boring, and Pilates wanted more action. So inside the castle he was given the opportunity to start training his fellow prisoners and train them in wrestling and boxing.<\/p>\n\n\n

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And then the Pilates exercises were born. In prison Pilates studied yoga but also the movements of various animals and created simple exercises on the floor. In fact, the name he gave to his technique was “Contrology” because in order to perform his exercises, self-concentration and calmness were required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, years later in an interview he had told him that the intuitive movements of cats inspired him in many many aspects. At the same time, more and more German prisoners were coming to the castle, many of whom were almost crippled and immobilized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who were confined to their beds could not exercise with the rest. And then the resourceful German began to make modifications to the beds. He took out springs and put them in the headboards and that’s how he discovered resistances with springs and created the “Pilates exercise beds”.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In 1918, a deadly flu epidemic broke out in Europe. Of the terrible “Spanish flu” And while people were dying en masse, in the prison those who got stuck but at the same time were working out with Pilates, survived and no one died. This is due to the good physical condition that the German gymnast kept the other prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the war he returned to his homeland where he was hired as an instructor for the secret police. But the interwar period in his country was wild and cruel. In 1925 he immigrated to the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his journey on the ship he made the acquaintance that would accompany him forever. He met and fell in love with a teacher Clara who also became his wife. The couple opened a fitness studio in New York on 8th Avenue in which Pilates did “Contrology” exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The relationship of the mind and the control it exerts on the muscles of the body, the posture, the balance, but also the support of the spine together with the awareness of the power of the breath were the “A and Z” of his exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as time passed, the German gymnast created new training instruments. Like the barrel he created from a beer barrel, while from the rims of the barrel, he created the Magic Circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His fame began to spread and because his gym was very close to Broadway, more and more actors and dancers started going there. In fact, the dancers who kept getting injured loved his method.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Like Romana Kryzanowska, who started Pilates at the age of 16 after an ankle injury. In fact, after the death of Pilates in 1967, Romana took over the gym together with his wife Clara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pilates died at the age of 83 after a major fire had previously burned down his gym. He had lost most of his property. Today the Pilates method, which he never called it that way but called it “controlology”, is probably the most popular exercise method in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Pilates is the creator of the famous exercise method that bears his name. “Pilates”. He was a sickly child and nothing foretold not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2993,2811],"tags":[3593,3591,3590,3592],"class_list":["post-9082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-life","category-wellness","tag-contrology","tag-joseph-pilates","tag-pilates","tag-workout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9090,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9082\/revisions\/9090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}