How Pilates can Make you Long and Lean...

THE SCOOP
You don’t get six-pack abs by doing Pilates. In the mat work, the first thing you figure out is to pull the navel to the spine. In other words, you compress your abdominal wall, which eventually creates the look of a flatter belly. Pulling inward trains your middle to be not only strong and supportive of your back but look like a sleek and toned tummy without the protruding six-pack, which is the sign of superficially strong muscles.


COMPLEX MOVEMENTS
Pilates exercises require many muscles to work at the same time. You rarely do a simple movement like straightening and bending the arm over and over. A Pilates exercise might combine a stretch of the spine with an arm circle followed by a sit-up. You’re challenging your body in many different ways. Pilates requires the body to perform different tasks that recruit many muscle groups at once. This kind of complex movement develops small and large muscle simultaneously. No one muscle gets all the attention; the smaller muscles become stronger and the bigger ones can take a break and not get too big and bulky.


VARIATION
No exercise is working just one muscle. Even if it is called a triceps press, you are always working from the core and recruiting muscles to perform what looks like a simple arm movement. To build and bulk up a muscle (in body building, for example), you need to fatigue that one muscle and do repetitions with resting in between. This approach is completely opposite to the Pilates approach of body conditioning. Pilates requires your whole body participate in each and every session.