Pilates: Hell on Earth

Now, I understand that Pilates has taken off in the world of exercise as the newest trend. It's low impact, you don't listen to loud music, and you don't bounce up and down for an hour wishing you were dead. So naturally I knew this would be the exercise for me.

The first day, I show up a little early...anxious to get started on what was going to make me slim and healthy, with my work-out partner by my side. (Mentioning again that he is 6'5"). I meet the teacher. She's pretty, slim and short! YAY! I have often felt like the exercise world didn't compensate for short people. A lot of the machines don't adjust to my height and sometimes I find myself sitting dangerously close to the edge of a seat while trying to press an insane amount of weight with my body. So I was thrilled to see that we were the same size and she was so thin! I just knew that I had found the answer I was looking for.

There were only 5 people in the class on this evening so she tells us that she will teach a very basic class since there were some newbies in there. I look at my work-out buddy and give the thumbs up. He is not at all convinced that this is the right training method for him, but as he my friend, he decides to at least give it a shot. Who knows? He may actually find it useful. (Again, he's 6'5") So we begin with learning how to breathe during the exercises to get the maximum benefit from the moves she is going to teach us. Breathing. What could be so hard about that?

My work-out buddy and I are both singers. We have spent our entire lives singing from the diaphragm as that is where singers get their vocal and breath support. So imagine my confusion when we are told that during Pilates, you are only allowed to breathe from your chest by expanding your rib cage. Sacrilege!! I could sense my high school chorus teacher and my private vocal coach clutching their chests in pain because somewhere out there was a singer that was breathing improperly and undoing all their hard work. Not only was I confused for the first 30 minutes of the class, but lightheaded at times. Since I didn't want to breathe the wrong way, I found myself holding my breath through a move and then a whoosh of blood would find its way to my feet and leave me feeling like I had just stepped off of Space Mountain. My buddy was having the same problem but was not registering the same look on his face, so I continued on. He did manage to mouth "I am not taking this class again" between gritting his teeth and breathing incorrectly.

Did you know that there is an exercise in Pilates that all you do is lift your leg off the floor about 6 inches and you will break out in a sweat as your body trembles to keep it up? You lay on your side, propped up by your hand, raise your top leg over your bottom leg and suspend it comfortably at about a 45° angle. Easy enough. Then you lift your bottom leg up about 6 inches off the mat. Hold it there. Breathe. Yeah. Right. Let's not talk about the fact that the first attempt I made at this, I rolled off my mat face-down onto the floor. I quickly rolled back so no one could see what I had just done. I looked around the room and there are 2 people who have done Pilates for awhile now and they are relaxed and even chatty as they hold their legs up. So I figure that I will one day get there and try to do the move again. I get my leg about 2 inches off the mat when my body starts to shudder like I have gone into some epileptic episode and my face starts to redden as I realize that I am holding my breath again. She switches to the other side and I am relieved to sit up and move in a way my body understands. I have no better luck on this side so I lay on my back until this movement is over. This torture continues for a solid hour, at which point the teacher and the other students jump up and clap and literally skip out of the room. My buddy and I staggered out of the room dripping with sweat trying to look cool. I shout back to the teacher "See you on Wednesday" and limp up the stairs.

I did go back on Wednesday...and needed a crane to get me out of bed on Thursday. Lifting a glass of water that day was as painful as childbirth (and I swore that I would never repeat that again)!

I think I will stick to the treadmill. You can see exactly how many calories you have burned, how long you have been on it, how many miles you have walked...it's instant gratification. And I don't have to worry about the getting the smelly mat.