Cardiolates

Try CARDIOLATES® to reconcile the integrity of Pilates with your clients’ weight loss goals

 The Question

 “Will I lose weight doing Pilates?”

As a Pilates instructor, don’t you just cringe when asked this question?  On the one hand, you think, “well, Pilates is movement that increases muscle tone, so compared to sitting on the couch eating bon-bons, this is clearly better.”  But on the other hand, you think “but by design, Pilates is not cardiovascular exercise, and by definition, it can’t be!”

 The Dilemma

 So what do you tell your client?  Do you say “yes” or “no”?

 We encountered this dilemma when we opened our Fifth Avenue studio, Pilates on Fifth, in Manhattan almost ten years ago.  Aware that weight loss remains the most common goal of individuals starting an exercise regime, we struggled with an honest answer to the question “will I lose weight with Pilates.”  We wanted to attract and retain clients and answer “yes!” but knew responding in that manner could create false expectations for the client.   

 Despite a few differences in methodology, most of us Pilates instructors can agree that an overall goal of Pilates is to strengthen the deep postural muscles of the core in proper alignment to facilitate greater inner joint stability and proper biomechanics.  On the other hand, the goal of cardiovascular exercise is "to increase heart rate and respiration on order to place an appropriate physiological stress on the cardiorespiratory system" in order to improve lung and heart health.  (ACSM)  Exercises must elevate the heart rate to 60%-80% of heart rate max to be classified as cardiovascular activity. 

 Thus, we hope you agree with us that with the exception of some Pilates professionals and aficionados reading this, the majority of Pilates practitioners should NOT be doing Pilates exercises at a speed vigorous enough to elevate the heart rate to these levels!  But the heart is the most important muscle in the body and is one of the major health indicators used by the medical profession (think of "stress tests") later in life.

 Plan A

 After three years in business, we finally resigned ourselves to the fact that weight loss would always remain one of the main fitness goals of many clients. We want to help our clients reach their goals, but we believe strongly that Pilates as a thoughtful system of exercise intended to re-pattern movement habits and re-balance muscle groups.  Thus, we were not willing to start teaching Pilates at the speed of light to help clients achieve a cardio workout during a Pilates lesson! 

 To solve this conflict of goals, we added cardio equipment – treadmills and ellipticals – to our studio in 2003.  We encouraged our clients to come early, stay late or come on a different day altogether and engage in the cardiovascular activity necessary for heart health and “fat burning”.  Clients were delighted and took advantage of the opportunity to do cardio and Pilates in the same studio.  They were happy, but…..

 The Flaws in Plan A

 Though we separated the cardio equipment from our main studio, we have a window through which we can see our clients sweating it out.  Oh my!  The things we saw!  Clients who were perfectly aligned on the reformer in the anti-gravity environment just minutes prior were now hunched over the elliptical with flexed hips and their shoulders by the ears.  You could hear the treadmill runners’ unevenness with the “thud, THUD, thud, THUD, thud, THUD” of their imbalanced footfall!  Clients understood alignment and optimal body positioning while focusing on those concepts in their Pilates lesson, but as soon as they resumed “normal” activities, the information – and muscle memory – seemed to evaporate right out of their brains.

 It then occurred to us that this was always happening with our clients, the addition of cardio machines just brought the problem to light!  But in the spirit of helping our clients make lasting changes, we sought to find a way to train not only their muscles but also their neuromuscular systems to support their bodies in optimal, upright posture.

 The Beginnings of Plan B

 We began rebounding -- jumping on a sturdier version of a mini-trampoline called a "rebounder" -- soon after we opened our Pilates studio.  As new business owners teaching all clients ourselves, we did not have time to get to the gym for the cardio necessary for heart health (and fat burning!)  Also, after years dancing on the steel stage of Radio City Music Hall as Rockettes, our knees and joints no longer enjoyed pounding the pavement!  We had purchased a popular series of dvds to use while rebounding, but that system did not work for our body types.  Most cardiovascular activity, treadmills, ellipticals, exercise bikes and this rebounding technique we tried, keep the body flexed at the hips and concentrate movement in the sagittal plane.  Because a rebounder does not hold the feet or hands in a set position, not only can the body be perfectly upright, but also movement can occur in all planes of motion.

 But not until the failure of plan A did we realize we could craft a rebounding technique to offer our clients as their cardio exercise!  Thus, CARDIOLATES® was born!  We decided to call it "Cardiolates" because we are integrating the alignment principles of Pilates with the cardiovascular and physiological benefits of rebounding.  The central tenets of the CARDIOLATES® technique are similar to Pilates principles, but are applied in a completely different way.  They include abdominal connection, pelvic placement, shoulder placement, head and neck placement and knee and foot placement.  The mat of high quality rebounders (we use Needak) absorbs 87% of the shock to the joints, so even clients with joint problems can enjoy cardiovascular activity again with CARDIOLATES®. 

 Other benefits of CARDIOLATES®

 Not only is CARDIOLATES® fun, it benefits almost every system of your body!  We all expect cardio activity to benefit the cardiorespiratory system, but rebounding and CARDIOLATES® also improves lymphatic circulation, which benefits both the lymphatic and immune systems.  Unlike the circulatory system, the lymphatic system is a one-way system that lacks a central pump like the heart.  In a nutshell, the lymphatic system is the sanitation department of the body:  lymph fluid is transported to the cells through the circulatory system, diffuses through capillary walls to pick up dead cells, toxins, trapped proteins and other harmful particles from around the cells of the body.  Then the lymph nodes filter out the toxins, etc. so that "clean" lymph re-enters the circulatory system ready to do the job again.  Normally, contractions of skeletal muscle, external pressure such as a massage and even airplane pressure affect the flow of lymph.  When rebounding, the circulation of lymph can be up to 30 times that at rest!  Thus, you can almost think of rebounding as speeding up detox!

 Ups and downs of CARDIOLATES®

 Ups:  It's fun, effective and benefits all major systems of the body!  Rebounders can slide under your bed (so you can do CARDIOLATES® any time while watching TV -- or doing one of our videos) and it is easy to incorporate into group classes.

 Downs:  People actually find it easier than other forms of cardio!  CARDIOLATES® will elevate your heart rates and with the right, varied choreography, will work all major muscle groups more evenly than typical forms of cardio.  Yet consumers have come to think that unless they are red-faced and gasping for breath, they are not doing enough!  We encourage you to help your clients (or yourself!) use something other than sweat and fatigue as a measure of how hard you worked.  Moderate cardio activity is just as effective as heavy cardio activity when combined with appropriate adjustments in frequency and duration, and CARDIOLATES® mainly falls into the "moderate" category (though our level 5 workout crosses a bit into heavy)!  Because CARDIOLATES® is moderate, the exercise can not only be sustained for longer durations, but also be practiced more frequently.

 After CARDIOLATES®, you will feel invigorated, refreshed and motivated to continue.  Moreover, because CARDIOLATES® does not derail the alignment principles and muscle-balancing attributes of Pilates, it is a perfect cardio complement to your Pilates practice.