Pilates is a type of low-impact exercise. It is effective to tone up, building lean muscles, and improving body posture. However, is pilates good for weight loss and for maintaining a healthy weight? For this, we have to discuss various aspects of pilates and its effect on the body weight of individuals.
Overview of Pilates Workout
Pilates refers to low-impact exercises, which may strengthen your body muscles and increase its flexibility. Moreover, the exercise helps you to meet your fitness goals and burns calories.
Pilates is a type of workout schedule, which targets your core areas. However, the exercise may work on other body parts as well. You may easily do its exercises without or with equipment.
Only, you should focus on slow and gentle movements and breathe at the right intervals. The positive aspect is that you may do Pilates on a reformer machine or a mat.
Frequency of Pilates Exercise
Beginners of pilates may practice it 2 times to 3 times in one week. However, as you get flexibility, you may increase your number of times or the exercise hours to get more health benefits.
Pilates Effect on the Body
The pilates effect refers to the idea of practicing it and its potential outcome as improved muscle tone, posture, and a toned area of your body cores.
The effect may help you to lose weight. The reason is pilates lets you stay fit overall even though you have toned body muscles or failed to shed any extra weight. Once you know the effect, you should look at the research studies on is pilates good for weight loss?
Research Studies on Pilates
We have obtained mixed results from research studies conducted on pilates. In one study, experts have conducted research on 37 obese or overweight women between 30 years and 50 years. They have found that regular practice of pilates for 8 weeks has proved to be effective for the following-
- Weight loss
- Toning of the waist
- Lowering of BMI
- Reduction in hip and abdomen circumference
However, pilates does not create any difference in the individual’s lean body mass. Here, lean body mass refers to the difference between the total body weight and body fat weight. The comparison and the result obtained were with a group, who does not involve in any type of exercise during the respective period.
A few researchers have conducted studies on postmenopausal women from 60 years to 65 years old. Here, the research studies have shown that practicing mat pilates for 12 weeks does not lead to any change in their physical compositions.
However, participants have significantly increased their lower and upper limb strength and their abdominal strength. Researchers suspected that zero variation in the body composition of targeted women was because of their no alteration in the diet plan.
Calories You May Burn from Pilates
The calories you may burn from pilates exercises depend on your present body weight. Moreover, it also depends on whether you perform simple mat exercises or attend a reformer class. Other than that, fitness freaks should never overlook the difficulty level in each class.
For instance, if your body weight is 150 pounds, you should attend a single 50 to 60 minutes of Pilates mat exercise. The workout works well for all individuals at the beginner level, as they can easily burn approximately 175 calories.
An advanced pilates session of 50 minutes to 60 minutes will burn about 250 calories. Besides, your amount of calorie burn will increase while attending pilates reformer class or any other similar session, where your heart rate elevates.
Common Pilates Exercises Aim to Weight Loss
Plank Jacks
- To start, you have to take a plank position on an exercise mat.
- Keep your hands below your shoulders and feet while extending your arms.
- Keep your core muscles engaged by jumping your both legs open and going back together.
- You should continue with jumping in and out by keeping the back flat. Besides, you should avoid dropping your hips down.
Repeat the process to a maximum of 20 seconds to begin. You may make the process-intensive by extending your duration to up to 60 seconds or moving at a fast rate.
Swimming
- Lay on your stomach in a flat position and keep your legs straight and forehead down.
- Stretch the arms straight, and keep the feet pointed to pull your abdomen in the inside direction.
- Lift the legs, arms, head, and chest on a single count and hold them for a while.
- Alternatively, you may do the same exercise with your left leg first and then with your right one. During the entire process, you should exhale and inhale normally.
- You should count up to 10 and repeat your moves gradually.
V-ups
- Create a V shape with your legs, back, and head by lying on an exercise mat.
- Hold your V position for about 5 seconds and relax for a while.
- Repeat the same procedure and do a minimum of 10 repetitions of the exercise.
Crisscross
- Lie on the back by layering your hands and keeping your palms one on the other behind the head.
- Bend the knees to bring the shins in an upward direction.
- Engage the torso by inhaling and touch the right elbow towards your left knee. You should make sure to straighten the right leg in the forward direction and hold it above a few inches from the pilates mat.
- Exhale to return to your previous position.
- Repeat the same procedure on your other side of the body.
Conclusion
Regular practice of pilates retains your overall health and maintains a healthy body weight. However, if you ask if pilates goes od for weight loss, we should say that merely pilates exercises may not give you the required result. Instead, you have to combine it with other weight loss exercises, like walking, running, cycling, and cardio or Zumba exercises. Other than that, you have to follow a healthy diet plan by including green veggies and fruits in your regular meals.
