Are you around that age 50+ mark, frustrated that your body’s changed so much with stress, hormonal shifts, and the babies you had 20 years ago? You’re not who you once were, and you’re starting not to recognize your body anymore. It’s a little stiffer, a little creakier, and a little squishier than it used to be, and you don’t like it. At all.
You’ve heard Pilates is great for everything, but it seems like only younger, thinner people are the ones doing it on social media…but that’s far from true. I’ve been teaching for over 2 decades and I promise you, MORE of my clients have started when they were over 50 than any other demographic, and they’re awesome.
Since I’m inching my way closer and closer to 50, I get the changes your body’s been going through. I may have started Pilates when I was in my 20’s, but I keep doing Pilates because of how it makes me feel, even now. It’s worth it to try it out!
Decrease pain
Is your back tight and stiff when you get out of bed? Do your joints hurt? Is your neck unhappy? As we age, old injuries can give us trouble, new injuries can appear, and our well-reinforced postural habits come out as strain in a myriad of places in our bodies.
Finding strength and mobility with Pilates will help you decrease pain, stiffness, and aching joints, because it provides you with a supportive base to move from. Instead of hanging off your hips, your glutes and abs will take that tightness from your hip flexors, and you’ll notice a difference in how you stand. Instead of pushing your face forward to help you move forward, you’ll use your abs and upper back. You’ll find new ways to move that feel a LOT better than how you have been.
Find strength & keep it
As you age, it’s more important that ever to have and keep your strength. Even if you’re feeling weak at this point, there’s no reason why you can’t get stronger. Starting your Pilates practice now when you’re younger means not only will you feel better now, but as you age, you’ll still feel great.
If you keep up your practice, you’ll be able to keep your mobility through your later years, which means you’ll have a much better quality of life when you’re blowing out the candles on your 90th birthday! Pilates is a workout you can do until you die because it’s easy on your joints, balances strength and flexibility, and since your body is always changing, it keeps it interesting.
Improve your posture
You might not be starting to shrink yet, but if you’re not working on your supportive muscles in your abs, glutes, and upper back, eventually a trip to the doctor’s office will show a decrease in your height. No one wants to shrink, and no one wants to have bad posture.
Hunched shoulders can lead to a Dowager’s Hump, especially if you’re over 40. Doing extension exercises and strengthening your upper back will help prevent it (or help reverse it if it’s already happening!). Pilates balances your flexion and extension, so you’ll strengthen everything, and your posture will improve exponentially.
This is even true for neck pain. If you have a lot of pain in your neck and shoulders, Pilates is helpful and alleviating that strain. Nothing’s better for neck tension than upper back strength.
Keep balance as you age
Did you know that by age 65, your risk of falls increases exponentially if you don’t have a lot of balance or strength? Starting your Pilates practice now will mean that into your 60s and beyond your likelihood of a devastating fall will decrease massively?
Strengthening your entire body, like Pilates does with every exercise, means that if you trip, you can catch yourself before you use your hands (or your face) to stop a fall. Working on your posture and all the small, supportive muscles in your body now means that as you age, you won’t be concerned about your balance. It’s probably not something you’re thinking about now, but it will make a huge difference as you get older.
Find a qualified instructor
Finding a teacher that knows how to see what your body needs is important. Just because someone knows how to do an exercise or what it looks like doesn’t mean they know how to best use the exercises for your particular body.
Starting with a qualified teacher means you’ll reach your goals faster, find more from your practice, and learn how to move your body more efficiently, no matter where you’re starting from!
Start slow
Connection is key. It doesn’t matter how pretty your practice is, it matters that you can feel your body in each exercise. That takes time! So, if you’re moving slowly at the start, it’s not a bad thing. You’ll be picking up the pace in no time when you feel stronger and more capable with the movements. You might not start doing the full repertoire, but over time you’ll see more of the practice is possible in your body – even over 50, just when you thought you were starting to fall apart.
Let yourself be a beginner!
It seems like just because we have more years under our belts, we should know everything, all the time, but that’s not true. Being a beginner and letting go of how you’ve worked out in the past will mean the difference between really connecting with your Pilates practice and struggling with it.
Your teacher is there to help you learn. You don’t know everything, and we don’t expect you to. Learning can be fun if you have no expectations of where you “should” be or what you “should” be able to do. Learning something new also helps your brain stay young. It helps build new neural pathways in your brain and that keeps your mind as active as your body, which is even more important the older you get. Embrace being a beginner again!
Use props and modifications
If you can’t cross your legs, you can sit up on a cushion. If you can’t lie flat on your back, you can sit up or use a ball behind you. There are many ways to make the exercises more possible at the start, and you shouldn’t be afraid to use them.
Just because you start with props or modifications doesn’t mean you’ll use them forever. We use them to find connection, and then we try taking them away. It’s not an indication that you’re “failing”, or that you’ll “never do that”, it’s just where you’re at and what you need, right now. It feels a lot better to make things possible than it does to struggle and strain. Props and modifications are your friend, and it’s not because of your age! I teach 20-year-olds that need props and modifications.
Give yourself a break.
We all suck at Pilates when we start! Seriously. Unless you’re already in Cirque de Soleil, you’re probably not gonna get it right at the beginning, and that’s okay. It’s through our struggles that we find strength. Maybe your body doesn’t work like it used to, but we’re going to work together to make it work better than it has in a long time! It takes time. It takes patience. It takes practice. But you’re going to get there, and there’s no better time to start than right now.
Don’t use the fact that you’re 50 to talk yourself out of starting your Pilates practice. It’s worth it now, and it will be even more worth it later. They're not called your Fabulous Fifties for nothing. You’ve got this!
Xo, Kimberly
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