Learn more about the man behind The Method and the equipment he designed to offer an exercise repertoire, which with consistent practice, offers incredible benefits, such as:

• Longer, leaner muscles
• Improved posture
• Increased core strength and stability
• Injury preventing
• Enhanced functional fitness
• Balance, strength and flexibility
• Increased body awareness
• Low impact exercises, not jarring to the joints
• Customizable for everyone from rehab patients to elite athletes
• Complementary to other methods of exercise
• Improved performance in sports / dance
• Improved balance, coordination, circulation

Who was Joseph Hubertus Pilates?

Born near Dusseldorf in Germany in 1880, Joseph H. Pilates had a lifelong interest in body conditioning. As a frail child suffering from rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever, Pilates was dedicated to becoming stronger. At a young age he began to study anatomy and various forms of exercise to improve his health and physique.  At aged 14 he had been so successful in his endeavors that he was asked to model for anatomy charts. He later grew to become an accomplished skier, diver, gymnast, and boxer.

While interned in England in a camp for enemy aliens during World War I for his German citizenship, Joseph became a nurse. During this time, he uses his knowledge to help rehabilitate bedridden patients and designed exercise apparatus for immobilized patients by attaching springs to hospital beds. This system formed the foundation for his style of body conditioning and specialized exercise apparatus. Rumor has it that his efforts were so successful that when the 1918 flu epidemic swept the world, not one of his followers died, even though thousands of others in the UK  succumbed!

He returned to Germany after the war but in 1925 he was invited to train the New German Army but decided to head for the US instead.  It was on this journey that he met his future wife, Clara.

Upon their arrival in New York City they opened the first New York Pilates Studio® in 1926, close to a number of Ballet and Dance Schools and in doing so found a captive audience.

Joseph Pilates was a determined man and a health fanatic. He was also a little eccentric and also renowned for his liking of cigars, whiskey, and women… He died in 1967, at aged 87. His wife Clara, continued to teach and run the studio until her death 10 years later.

Currently, the Pilates Method is used internationally by individuals at all levels of fitness as well as by dance companies, Broadway shows, students at performing arts schools and universities, sports teams, spa clients, and fitness enthusiasts at private health clubs and gyms.