I Did Pilates Every Day for a Month and This Happened: Part 1
"In 10 sessions you'll feel the difference, in 20 sessions you'll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you'll have a whole new body.” Joseph Pilates
Hello dancers!
If you’re like me, a gen z girl with a screen time average that’s way higher than it should be, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pink Pilates Princess. Who is she? Let’s see!
This aesthetic has been an obsession of mine for months now, but up until recently I had no interest in doing pilates. I went with my mom to her pilates classes for a while in middle school and I remember deeply disliking them. So why the sudden change of heart? Well, there are a few reasons I decided to give pilates another try...
My injury
Some of you may recall my bone disease post from a few years ago. My left knee still acts up every now and then, though thankfully it isn’t nearly as bad as it was back then. I learned that the growth plate in that knee actually grew in sideways. How does that even happen? I have no idea! But that leg has been more aggravated than usual since around June.
My Weight Gain
I gained a significant amount of weight in the past few months. Now, some of you may see this and think I decided to start pilates to lose the weight. Actually the opposite is true! Because pilates is a form of exercise where you use your own bodyweight for resistance training, I figured that with the extra pounds I’ve accrued now would be a great time to start to build up strength. I’m still planning on losing weight sometime later this year, and hopefully when I do I’ll be much stronger than I was before. For now though, I want to stay at maintenance.
Convenience
I found out recently that there’s a Club Pilates shockingly close to my house. I can’t speak for all locations, but the Club Pilates studio closest to me offers a free 30 minute intro class for beginners AND student discounts for memberships. This was great news for me! Although I remembered disliking pilates before, I thought that it would be a good idea to sign up for the beginner intro class. Even if I didn’t like it I figured that it would still be good for me to get a 30 minute workout in.
It turns out I actually loved the class! I immediately noticed an improvement in my mood. I felt light, energized, and happy! As someone who is used to some pretty intense workouts (if you’ve ever taken ballet or rhythmic gymnastics classes with a Russian teacher you know exactly what I’m talking about!) the beginner class felt like a breeze. However, while it wasn’t physically challenging there was a bit of a learning curve.
I’d never used a Pilates Reformer machine before. In addition there were positions I’d never put my body in before, so it was important for me to learn the proper technique. Because of this, although the first class felt easy I decided it would probably be better to increase the frequency of my pilates classes to get a more challenging work out than it would be for me to try to take one of the higher level classes.
I’m writing this post after attending 11 pilates classes. I actually missed my class this morning and had to rebook for later in the afternoon. This week my biggest challenge has been getting to class on time, compared to last week where I was early for all of my classes, and I decided that I’d rather be on time for a class later in the day than late for a morning class.
After around 4 classes in a row things did start to get much tougher for me! I haven’t had any rest days, and last week I had a yoga inversions class and a private gymnastics class before two of my pilates classes. Word to the wise, don’t book a cardio sculpt pilates class on the same day as a gymnastics class!
Because I’m not taking rest days I really need to work on my post work out routine. For me that means aiming to get 8 hours of sleep each night, foam rolling, doing my physical therapy, taking epsom salt baths, eating healthy, and having infrared sauna sessions. So far I haven’t done any of those consistently, but since I’m still in the beginning stages of this challenge there’s time for me to turn things around for the better.
According to Joseph Pilates after 10 pilates sessions you’ll feel a difference. I was actually surprised yesterday after 11 pilates sessions to notice that my anterior pelvic tilt wasn’t as bad as it usually is. This makes sense, Pilates is all about strengthening your core and during many of the exercises the goal is to keep your back completely flat on the reformer. Although I am skeptical about the claim that after 30 days you’ll have a whole new body, I still can’t wait to see where the rest of this journey takes me!
