Learn to Work Your Full Body with Pilates

I often get asked what muscles a certain exercise works, or what muscles a client should be feeling. That’s a tough one to answer, because Pilates is designed to work your full body. It’s pretty common to focus on the big muscle groups like your quads or biceps; I used to be the same! 

When I started lifting weights in 1989, I was taught to work my back and biceps one day, chest and triceps the next, and of course, do the dreaded “leg day”. Ab work could be slotted in on any day, which I loved. Note that I said abs and not core,  because we didn’t talk about core back then. I was programmed to think that each exercise worked just one area of the body. Now I know that this was never the truth. 

Functional Fitness

After many years (decades…) of learning and teaching in the fitness and Pilates space, I’ve learned so much more about how the body works. Most importantly, I’ve learned what it means to work your full body and why it’s essential – even in those “single muscle exercises” from the early 90’s like bicep curls. 

Like many others, I was taught that bicep curls were meant to work the biceps. With a little more education, I learned that the triceps also have a roll, helping to control the weight as you lower your arm or straighten it out of the curl. Still, no one ever told me then that bicep curls could also help improve my grip, core, or back strength. 

How can a simple bicep curl work your full body? By simply holding the weight in your hand, you’re working your hand and forearm muscles. The curl works your biceps and triceps. When you maintain a tall posture, your core and upper back muscles are engaged. You can take these ideas even further, and stand up during the exercise. This will engage your core and glutes even more as you maintain your posture. By adding a reverse lunge or standing on a bosu, you will add another level of difficulty and also engage your legs. Using many muscles at once during an exercise is called functional fitness.  

Pilates is Functional Fitness

Even in functional fitness, it’s important to be aware of where you’re feeling (or not feeling) an exercise. When you first start doing Pilates, it’s very likely that you’ll feel certain exercises more in one area of your body than another. Perhaps you’re doing the Hundred for the first time and you are feeling it in your neck and abs. This is good! The abs and neck do have to work in this exercise. But if you say your neck really hurts in an uncomfortable way, this is common in beginners and is super-correctable. The trained eye of an instructor will likely see if you’re engaging the back side of your body, or your arms or legs. There are tweaks you can make to your movement to feel more of the body working and less neck discomfort. 

As a beginner in Pilates, it’s important to learn to do the movements safely and to your ability. From there, we’ll work on finding more control and awareness in the movements. As you build strength and mobility the exercises will become easier to execute. With familiarity, you’ll think less about the set-up of your body and/or the apparatus, and you’ll be able to focus more on execution. 

Soon, you’ll be thinking about using parts of your body in an exercise that you never thought about using before. For instance, in the exercise stomach massage, hands back. Once you know where to sit, get your feet on the footbar, put your hands onto the shoulder blocks, and push into the footbar, feeling the exercise is next. Of course you’ll feel it in your feet and legs. But if you also think about using your arms by pushing the shoulder blocks away, you’ll feel your triceps turn on and your arms and upper back working. As a bonus, your pants don’t slide off! 

Give it Time

Yes, Pilates works your full body, but it will take you time to find full body engagement in each exercise. To help you, I can give you pre-Pilates work and foundational exercises, and then encourage lots of repetition of those. When you get really good and strong in the foundations, you’ll find the next exercises easier to do, even ones you never thought you’d be able to do. It takes consistency, patience, and a little challenge.