Pilates for stronger, steadier balance as you move through life
You can train balance at any age
Pilates is one of the most enjoyable ways I know to do it. Steadier on one leg while you pull a sock on. Surer on a muddy path. More confident stepping off a kerb with your hands full of shopping. That is what you get from this kind of practice, and it is what I teach every week at LouMove in Caterham.
What balance is, in plain terms
Balance is your body keeping itself over your feet while everything else moves. Standing still is balance. So is walking, turning to look behind you, reaching for the top shelf and getting up from the floor.
It is a skill, and a skill responds to practice.
How Pilates trains your balance
Balance is one of the words I come back to in every class, alongside precision, control, connection, stability, stretch, strength and stamina. Joseph Pilates' Classical repertoire sits underneath everything I teach, and a great deal of it asks you to hold your centre steady while your arms and legs move. That is balance practice, whether you are lying down, kneeling or standing.
In Matwork, it is you and the mat. Some sessions use small apparatus: the magic circle, small balls, hand weights and fitness bands.
Studio Pilates uses a fully equipped studio: Reformer, Tower, Chair, Cadillac, Small Barrels, Spine Corrector and Ladder Barrel. A Reformer carriage moves with you, so staying steady on it asks for control in a way the floor does not.
The exercises have progressions and modifications. The work has its foundation, and I keep it fresh and challenging. You start where you are steady and we move on from there.
What steadier balance lets you do
The reason to practise balance is what you do with it outside the class. Walking on uneven ground. Carrying a full tray across a room. Standing on one leg to put your shoes on. Dancing at a wedding. Getting down on the floor to play and back up again.
Balance work is in my classes for every age, because the same thing holds at 30 and at 70: you get better at what you practise.
What the research says about Pilates for balance
I have read three pieces of research on this, and I want to tell you what they found and where they stop.
In 2011, Gonul Babayigit Irez and colleagues followed 60 women aged over 65 in Ankara. Half of them did an hour of Pilates three times a week for 12 weeks, starting on the mat and adding bands and balls. The other half carried on as usual. The Pilates group improved their dynamic balance, the kind you use while you are moving, more than the group who did not train.
In 2012, Marie-Louise Bird and colleagues worked with adults over 60 who lived independently. The 27 people who finished did five weeks of group Pilates and five weeks of their usual activity. Their balance, standing and moving, improved across the Pilates weeks and did not change in the usual weeks. To be straight with you: when the researchers compared the two blocks head to head, the difference was not statistically clear, and it was a small group.
In 2015, Barker, Bird and Talevski pulled together six randomised trials of Pilates in older adults. Across those trials, Pilates improved balance compared with doing no exercise. The authors also said that better-quality studies are needed and that the size of the benefit may be overstated.
All three studied older adults, and none of them took place in my studio. If you are 35 or 50, this research is not about you directly. I include it because it points the same way as what Pilates asks of you in every session: steady centre, moving limbs, repeated often.
Pilates for balance in Caterham: where to start
You don't have to be fit to start, and you don't need good balance to start either. It is Pilates for every body.
I teach Matwork classes and Studio classes in Caterham. Studio classes have a maximum of six people and are mostly on the Reformer and Tower. Private one-to-ones and duets use all the apparatus. People come from Caterham-on-the-Hill, Whyteleafe, Warlingham, Chaldon and South Croydon as well as Caterham itself.
Sessions are 50 minutes and you book through Gymcatch. We build it up, we take time, we have fun, but we get results. There is no pressure, just encouragement.
Louise x
Your questions answered
Can Pilates improve your balance?
Yes. Pilates trains you to keep your centre steady while your arms and legs move, which is the skill balance depends on. A 2015 review of six randomised trials by Barker, Bird and Talevski found that Pilates improved balance in older adults compared with no exercise, and said better-quality studies are needed.
Do I need good balance to start Pilates?
No. Classical Pilates exercises have progressions and modifications, so you start where you are steady and build from there. At LouMove in Caterham you don't have to be fit to start.
Is Matwork or Studio Pilates better for balance?
Both train balance. Matwork uses your own body and the mat, sometimes with small apparatus such as the magic circle, small balls, hand weights and fitness bands. Studio Pilates uses the Reformer, Tower, Chair, Cadillac and Barrels, which add springs and moving surfaces.
Where can I do Pilates for balance in Caterham?
LouMove in Caterham, Surrey, offers Classical Pilates with Louise: Matwork classes, Studio classes of up to six people, and private one-to-ones and duets. Sessions are 50 minutes and are booked through Gymcatch.