An exercise coach workout can do most of what Pilates can do and more, right? What do you think about this? There’s kind of a lot happening within Pilates. There’s also a component of strength and flexibility. You took the words right out of my mouth. Welcome to the Strength Changes everything podcast, where we introduce you to the information, latest research, and tools that will enable you to live a strong, healthy life. On this podcast, we will also answer your questions about strength, health, and wellbeing being. I’m Amy Hudson. I own and operate three exercise coach studios.

My co hosts are Brian Sigan, co founder and CEO of The Exercise Coach, and Dr. James Fisher, leading researcher in evidence based strength training. And now for today’s episode. Welcome back, everybody. We’ve got another QA episode for you today. Today’s question is How does The Exercise Coach compare to Pilates? So, this question may mean, you know, how does the workout at the exercise coach compare to a Pilates style workout? It may be getting at, you know, what’s unique about the experience of doing an exercise workout that you may or may not find within a Pilates workout.

So, Dr. Fisher is going to help me break this down for you and address this from a few different angles to answer this question today. Dr. Fisher, how’s it going? Yeah, very good. Thank you. Yes, I like this question. I’m confident with this question because I’ve done Pilates. Well, then it makes you even more the expert. Okay. So, what do you think about this? What’s your answer to this question? Yeah. Well, first of all, as I said, I’ve done Pilates, I’ve done traditional Pilates and reformer Pilates. And I enjoy it. I don’t have any problem with anybody engaging in Pilates. I think it can be a really nice. You know, exercise methodology. And it certainly is unique. It certainly is very different from what the exercise coach offers. A bit of a background around it. So it’s based, I mean, it’s called Pilates. It was originally called Contrology or Contrology.

And it was developed by a guy called Joseph Pilates in the 20th century, I think in the early 20th century. And obviously, when we take back that name of controller, we know that the emphasis was on quality over quantity. So it was on sort of intentional, precise movements and sort of mastery of your body. Now, the quality over quantity part is very much in line with the exercise coach. That’s exactly what I would say that we deliver. It’s about the quality of the workout, not just. Mindlessly going in and doing rep after set of, you know, tons and tons of different exercises with a volume based approach. Pilates typically has an emphasis on our core musculature. I don’t love. The word core, but it’s our trunk musculature. So our abdominals, our low back, our obliques, our hips, and it’s about, it’s typically slower or very controlled movements where we’re kind of thinking of our body working as a whole unit, not in kind of separate parts, which, which is kind of okay.

I get that. In context, you might get on a leg press and you’re primarily obviously working the muscles of your Quadriceps and your hamstrings and your gluteals. Although it would also be fair to say that you’re retaining good postural control. So, you know, the muscles of your torso and your trunk are not switched off. So, they’re still active, they’re not passive. It was kind of devised because poor posture can cause inefficient movement or it can cause pain or injury, or injury can cause poor posture. Inefficient movement. So it’s kind of devised around that concept and kind of creating a neutral spine and joint alignment and Balanced activation.

So, our anterior muscles and our posterior muscles should be equally strong and equally coordinated, and our balance and our coordination should be similar. And then there’s also a component of strength and flexibility. So, there’s kind of a lot happening within Pilates, and hence why I’m not opposed to it. The problem with Pilates is that it does all of those things at a relatively low level. So it simply doesn’t offer sufficient mechanical loading to the muscular system to really drastically increase strength. Because there’s such an emphasis over control, we’re almost teaching our body to do, for want of a better phrase, to do sort of circus tricks, we’re teaching our body perform a move rather than to train a muscle overload the muscle in a way that’s conducive to really enhancing strength and increasing muscle mass. And hence, we don’t associate people that do Pilates as people that are particularly big or very muscular or very strong. They’re sort of maybe well toned and so forth in control. But it also doesn’t add enough loading to increase bone mineral density, which of course is one of the key benefits that we should be looking for from any exercise modality as we age.

That we maintain our bone mineral density. So in that sense, it’s the evidence around the health benefits of Pilates are typically around posture. Can it improve posture? Yes, absolutely. Can it reduce pain, like low back pain and neck pain, things like that? Yeah, absolutely no problem at all. But there’s very low evidence around it reducing risk of fractures, improving quality of life, increasing bone mineral density, and so forth, which is. Where it differs quite drastically from the exercise coach. Is very focused on high muscle fiber recruitment using the exobotics devices. It’s focused on increasing strength, increasing muscle mass, increasing bone mineral density, which are all geared towards improving quality of life. And of course, if you train on the nucleus machine, then you increase low back strength, which reduces low back pain. Many of our exercises can improve. Posture as well, both around our shoulders and our thoracic region, as well as in our low back. So In my sense, traditional strength training at the exercise coach can offer what Pilates can offer, or most of what Pilates can offer, and then much, much more. So, I would say that strength training at the exercise coach is the foundation.

That’s the important part. But if somebody wants to add in Pilates for that element of kind of control, then they should absolutely do so. You took the words right out of my mouth. I was just going to say and summarize it that an exercise coach workout can do most of what Pilates can do and more, right? Or everything it can do and more. And especially if you’re in the camp of aging, you’re going to get more concerns to address than a younger person will. And so that’s where having all of those benefits available and the other hidden benefits of effective muscular loading that’s going to build bone density up, that’s going to build more muscle mass, that’s going to be protective, becomes more appealing. So, again, it depends on your goal, right? But that’s a great answer. I think we address it from every angle, and I totally understand it. Anything else that we’d missed in this episode that you want to mention? Well, the only other thing I was going to add is that the exercise coach meets everybody at whatever level they’re at. And I can’t speak of Pilates in this instance, but for example, if somebody’s So weak that they need to do a seated chest press or a seated leg press, that’s exactly what the exercise coach offers.

You know, somebody can get to there and then they move into that seat and they engage in that exercise from whatever starting point they’re at. If they’re a high level NFL athlete, the machine is going to suit them in exactly the same way. It’s going to provide as much resistance as they can handle and as much force as they can produce. Pilates, I think, because of the controlled nature, Might require us foundational strength, balance, and stability to engage in it. So I think I’ve never heard of Pilates being geared towards that maybe 70, 80 plus demographic, but I’m more than happy to be proved wrong.

And if somebody has any comments, feel free to raise those issues. No, I, yeah, I definitely can see that. Yeah, well said. Well said. So great. Well, thank you so much for that answer. And again, send us your questions if you have them to strengthchangeseverythingcom We would be happy to answer them. Or if you want us to go deeper on anything that we have ever covered, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We love to hear from you. Until then, we will see you next week on the podcast. Until then, we hope you remember strength changes everything. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please share it with a friend. You can submit a question. Or connect with the show at strengthchangeseverythingcom Join us next week for another episode and be sure to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you never miss another episode. Here’s to you and your best health.