By Therese Iknoian

If you read any magazines or go to a health club, you’ve probably heard about something called “pilates” exercise (pronounced “puh-'law-tease”). Maybe you still don’t know what it is even though you’ve heard the word.

Here’s a little Pilates primer out of my book Mind-Body Fitness For Dummies to help you along:

Pilates is actually the name of the man who came up with the method in the early 1900s (Joseph Pilates). He’d actually developed the method while working in a hospital during the war in Germany and using bedsprings for resistance in therapy with patients. But then he came to New York, where he taught it exclusively to dancers for conditioning and training for their professional dance work since they needed a strong core (abdominals and back), strong but flexible muscles, and also very long and lean lines

Fitness? He didn’t know what aerobics, body sculpting, or fitness was. He just knew that dancers needed well-conditioned leg muscles, great balance, and torsos of steel to do what they had to do to fascinate audiences.

But as people began to be taught the health benefits of strong muscles and hearts in the ‘70s, former students of Pilates began to realize that his controlled bending and twisting was a conditioning method many would find appealing. Slowly, former students began to branch out in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s to promote the method.

Pilates-based exercise emphasizes a tall posture with an open chest, tight abs, and lengthening your muscles, not bunching them up. It can use simply a mat on the floor, a machine that looks like a odd torture device called the “Reformer (this is what you may see advertised on TV),” or other chairs, accessories, and stools.

For someone at home, mat exercises are the easiest to try with a little instruction, a book, or a video.  As you become more advanced or want more detailed instruction, you could contact local gyms, health clubs, or even yoga studios since many now offer both mat and Reformer classes for members.