It always makes me a little sad when, after meeting me and learning I teach Pilates, people tell me, “Oh, I tried Pilates before. It was too easy!”.
Boo, if it was easy, you were doing it wrong!
Pilates isn’t like any other exercise. It keeps giving back, even off the mat, when the effort you give isn't just about going through the motions or "getting it done". Which isn't to say I haven't wanted to just get through one of my workouts! It's more about doing the best you can in the amount of time you have for your practice, whether it's 5 minutes or 50!
Even if there is a lot of coordination and choreography that comes with it, Pilates isn’t only about choreography, like you were worried about in step class. The choreography is simply the means to getting the best possible workout, and connection. Managing to move all your body parts in all the ways is not the easiest!
If you tried a Pilates class but found it easy, there may be a few reasons why you did:
Not having a Guide
If you tried Pilates on your own, with a video or written book describing the exercises, you missed out on a lot of the nuance of Pilates. Even if you have a mirror, you can’t ever fully SEE yourself doing the exercises, and we’re so used to being in our bodies that it’s hard to feel what’s going wrong – or what could be going better.
Having a teacher brings you a lot of clarity on where your body likes to take shortcuts – or not show up at all! A competent, experienced Pilates instructor can help you find more from your practice than you ever thought possible, and it DEFINITELY won’t be ‘easy’. You’ll wonder why what’s felt easy before suddenly got a lot more challenging!
Which brings us to the next point…
You’re hanging off your joints
Our bodies are amazing things. They can find a way to make anything a shortcut! Instead of using our abs, we like to hang off our hips or our quads. If you’re pretty flexible, or your joints are hypermobile, it’s really easy to just use that instead of trying to find strength from other places that aren’t used to working.
So much of the time when people have lower back issues, their abs are weak because they don’t use them for support – they use the front of their legs or their hip flexors instead. Finding support from the abs & the backs of your legs & lower part of your booty makes a huge difference in what your abs must do AND what your back doesn’t have to do.
This is also common when you have neck or shoulder strain when you’re working out (or just in everyday life!). You’re so used to using the muscles at the top of your shoulders – your upper traps/trapezius muscles – that your entire upper back, which can do a LOT more for you, doesn’t participate in decreasing that tension.
This is also where having a Pilates teacher will help you find all the places that need to START working!
Another perspective
Most of us are very concerned with how things LOOK (on the mat and IRL, amirite?). All of those Pilates exercises you see people doing? SO pretty. So you try to make them look pretty…but can’t. Or they do look pretty, but they’re not doing anything for you, which is why they seem easy.
What about changing your perspective during your Pilates practice to how the exercises FEEL, instead of how they look?
Can you feel the connection of your low abs? Can you feel your upper back wide against your mat? Can you feel the weight of your sitting bones evenly? Can you feel the crown of your head reaching to the sky?
Feeling the exercises changes everything about them. How they look really doesn’t matter.
Go deeper
If you’ve been doing your Pilates practice for a while, and some of the exercises have started feeling easy, that’s a sign you’re ready to go a little deeper in your connections.
You can always find more from any exercise – more reach, more press, more lift, more scoop…
And finding more makes everything harder! Any exercise can go to a deeper level. We’re not just doing them so we can go through the motions. We’re doing them to support our everyday lives OFF the mat. To find greater strength, balance, and awareness of how our bodies move and what they need.
Muscling Through
This is such a common thing for everyone I see to want to do!
If you have any strength in any part of you, it’s gonna want to help you out.
Can’t quite ‘roll up’ in your Roll Up? How ‘bout those shoulders hike and help you try to heave up off the mat? Maybe those hip flexors help by lifting your feet off the floor?
Finding the Swan a bit hard to lift up in? Your body jumps in like it’s a push up and those shoulders try to push you up, instead of your upper back, abs, and booty giving you a hand!
It’s easy to muscle through most of the exercises, but the hard part, the most beneficial part of any Pilates exercise, is moving through the exercise. It’s NOT about where you ultimately end up.
Not looking for more
Our bodies tend to want to just work to “good enough”.
Doing everything right but don’t really want to add in a little more coordination, an extra movement of a body part, or a challenge to your stability?
It’s going to be easy to just do the minimum. Pushing yourself to get your Pilates practice to the next level isn’t about doing more reps or more exercises. It’s about looking for more from each rep and each exercise, whether that’s the next variation of it, or as I mentioned earlier, going deeper into each movement.
So, if YOU think Pilates is too easy, can you see yourself in any of these potential ‘cheats’ that didn’t connect you to the actual challenge of Pilates? If you tried Pilates again, could you get more out of it? I hope you do!
It’s disappointing to hear when someone is missing out on something so wonderful, supportive, and life changing as a personal Pilates practice! If you need help making YOUR Pilates practice harder, or just better, I’m here. Connect with me anytime.
Xo, Kimberly
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