Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in 1880. He was a sickly child, but by the age of 14 he had strengthened his body in such a way that he no longer suffered from his childhood illnesses. He studied many forms of exercise from bodybuilding to yoga and became convinced that bad posture and inefficient breathing caused poor health. He went on to develop an exercise method designed to improve posture, coordination, strength, flexibility and balance.
Since its invention in the 1920s, the Pilates method has been continually evolving. Teaching styles can vary widely from the "classical" repertoire, which maintains strict adherence to the original work taught by Joseph Pilates himself, to more contemporary approaches, which keep the essence of his method, but incorporate scientific discoveries about human movement.
Images © I.C. Rapoport