Get a Pilates Body

It is that time of year when magazine and blog headlines lean more heavily to topics like “How to Get a Pilates Body,” or “Lift Weights to Get a Beach Body by Summer”. In fact, we are bombarded with headlines like this all of the time. 

What Makes a “Pilates Body” or “Beach Body”? 

Headlines touting “how to get a pilates body” and others make me sad. I am sad because we are being pushed to feel that we should like a fitness model. I am also sad about how misleading the headlines are. There is no “one thing” (like Pilates or weightlifting) that will give us the look that the (probably airbrushed) cover model has.

The runner pictured in the article could also strength train, do yoga, and work with a dietitian. The cover model might never once have done Pilates, and could have a disordered relationship with food. We don’t know the stories of the people used to represent those Pilates bodies, beach bodies, and runners physiques. 

I agree that it feels amazing to look good in your jeans, and it is healthy to keep your fat mass down and your muscle mass up. But I believe that exercise should be about feeling good mentally and physically, and not about how you look. Looking good is a bonus!

How to Focus on Feeling Better

My approach to coaching, both in person and  in my app programs, is to help clients to move with awareness. I help my clients learn how they are moving their bodies and where they need to build more strength, mobility, stability, or flexibility.  

As you improve on the imbalances in your body, you will start to feel better and stronger in all of your movements. I say it all the time – without cross-training, I couldn’t do most of the things that I do. If I don’t do pilates and strength training, I get hurt from running. I would have to stop running if I tried to only focus on that one area. When I do HIIT, spin classes, or interval runs (which are horribly difficult) a couple times a week, I notice a great improvement in my endurance on longer runs.

All of this is about feeling better when I’m exercising. One type of activity benefits my performance in another. I feel successful because the “exercise activity” starts to feel easier.   The Pilates and/or strength coaching I do with some of my clients is about having them feel better in doing their daily activities around their house. For others, it is about feeling better as they mend from an injury or surgery.

Feeling Better is Feeling Happier, Too

The other thing that is very important to me is that clients feel happier through exercise. When you exercise, your body releases chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins reduce your perception of pain and trigger positive feelings in your body. Exercising can be the last thing you feel like doing some days, but you will feel so much better afterwards.  

Connecting with others through exercise is another way that you will start to feel better. Connect one-on-one with me in a personal training session, join a class, or virtually online. The people you meet through fitness can start to feel like family, as we celebrate each others’ wins together, and encourage each other through the hard moments. 

It is important to me that my clients feel better in their bodies, hurt less, and feel happier. Now more than ever, exercise needs to be about this and not about how to get a Pilates body in time for summer.