"Pilates is about strength. You’re working your deepest core muscles." - Louise Buttler
Pilates has a reputation problem.
Mention it in some training environments and the response is predictable: it’s gentle, it’s mainly for flexibility, and it’s something dancers or yoga enthusiasts might enjoy rather than serious athletes.
But that perception misses the point entirely.
To separate myth from reality, we asked Louise Buttler, founder of el be Pilates, to tackle some of the most common misconceptions surrounding the discipline - and explain why all types of athletes should take it seriously.
THE MYTH: Pilates is for girls
THE REALITY
A lot of people think that Pilates is quite soft - and it's absolutely not. Pilates is about strength. It's working your deepest core muscles. So you become incredibly strong by doing it.
It covers all your stabilising muscles, all those little muscles around your joints, and those much deeper muscles. So you've got your superficial muscles on the outside, whereas if you go deeper into your core, you get into those muscles, you work from the inside out, and you're going to have the strongest body.
Pilates was made by a man - Joseph Pilates. It was during the Second World War and it was originally for soldiers and boxers. After that it was really prominent in dance - it became huge in the world of ballet. So it's not just made for women, it is made for men AND women.
I actually wish it wasn't called Pilates because the name doesn't reflect the association with strength and conditioning, rehab and injury prevention - stronger words that I think some men need in their life.
THE MYTH: Pilates is just for flexibility
THE REALITY
I think there's a lot of confusion between Pilates and yoga. And yes, Pilates does increase and improve flexibility and mobility, but predominantly it's for improving your strength. You work really deeply into muscles. You do a lot of repetition on muscles, which makes muscles fatigue, so people call it the Pilates burn.
And often people are like, 'I've never ever felt muscle pain like it,' and that's because it works so deeply into a muscle. It's quite fun to get somebody mic'd up for a Pilates class and to listen to them - you hear a lot of grunting and moaning!
THE MYTH: Pilates isn't a proper workout
THE REALITY
I feel really passionately about this one. There's this myth around exercise where people think you need to be hammering it in a gym for an hour, and you need to be sweating a lot. And there's that element of actually not enjoying it and not looking forward to it.
I say this to all our el be Pilates members: it's about finding an exercise that you actually look forward to and that you can be consistent with, and you don't need an hour. If you could carve out 15 minutes a day where you just move your body, that accumulates into those small changes, those small habits that you can implement. And they can have a big impact on your life and longevity.
We're living in a world where there's just so much noise and we're so stimulated all of the time. Being able to just have a little bit of time away from that...
I think that's where Pilates is so good because you can't think of anything else. You have to have your body in such a precise position. So you're able to totally zone out and switch off.
TRY IT YOURSELF!
If you’re curious about Pilates and how it can help you, Louise has shared a perfect workout to get you started.
It focuses on the same principles she describes here - deep core strength, stability and controlled movement.
Set aside 15 minutes, follow along and feel the difference.
Then continue your el be Pilates journey with a 25% discount, a 14-day free trial and unlimited access to 600 Pilates workouts and 40 curated programmes.
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