The Ideal Schedule For Pilates Workouts – A Guide For Beginners

There are many benefits to doing a Pilates workout, some of which include an improved range of mobility, increased flexibility, as well as increased strength too.

In addition to these benefits, Pilates is also known as a great way to help improve both your balance and stability, which is a result of Pilates’ heavy reliance on the core muscles.

If you’re looking to try to create the best possible Pilates workout, then there are a lot of considerations that have to be taken into consideration first.

It mainly depends on what your goals are for your fitness.

Some of the best workouts can differ quite a bit in terms of how often they’re done, some are only done once a week, whereas some can be every day!

These can all lead to different results, and it is important to try out each option to see which option works best for you and the rest of your schedule.

Establishing Your Fitness Goals

The first step is to establish exactly what you’re planning to gain from your Pilates workouts, if you’re planning on doing Pilates in order to help lose some weight, then your workout schedule is going to look vastly different to someone who is looking to use Pilates simply to help with their flexibility.

You can also make use of Pilates in addition to your traditional strength training routine, a lot of Pilates exercises place resistance on the muscles, which is great for increasing muscle strength as well as helping to develop your body muscle awareness and therefore providing you with better and more efficient body movement.

As you can see, Pilates is an incredibly versatile form of working out, which incorporates a lot of different elements that makes it incredibly comprehensive.

Whether it’s body alignment, body awareness, coordination, or breathing, all of these are what goes into making Pilates such an incredible thing for your body, and each workout can be catered to focus specifically on one of these things if you so wish!

So consider what sort of results you want to see from your workouts, as this will massively help when it comes to forming the way your workouts look!

Once A Week Workouts

The idea of only doing a Pilates workout once a week honestly doesn’t sound like it would be enough to be of any real benefit to you or your body, right?

However, some research has proven otherwise!

Even just one Pilates session per week can massively help with your body awareness, strength, balance and your flexibility.

In fact, just doing Pilates once a week is a great way of helping to relieve chronic back pain too, with many people finding that their symptoms improve dramatically after a few weeks.

So, you shouldn’t be too disheartened if your schedule only allows you to make enough time for one Pilates session a week, as it can still have a positive impact on your health and wellbeing!

Frequent Workouts

Even just using Pilates exercises to work out once a week can be great for you, but if you’re able to workout multiple times a week, then you’ll be able to see the impact that these workouts have on your body much quicker!

Even just doing a Pilates workout 2-3 times a week can see a reduction in body fat percentage and help to provide a stronger core, better balance and stability, as well as massively improving your flexibility too.

You should remember that excessively working out can actually have a negative impact too if you place too much strain on your body, remember your Pilates workouts should complement your lifestyle and help to improve yourself, and the most important thing is that you enjoy it!

So don’t overdo it or you won’t enjoy your Pilates workouts as much as you’re meant to!

Making Your Pilates Workout Schedule

When it comes to creating your workout schedule, there are a few other things you need to consider too, with variety being one of the key aspects to a successful workout schedule, otherwise you’ll likely get bored of working out or will suffer from a burnout.

Plus, if you regularly rotate your exercises to give yourself an easier or harder workout session, it allows your body time to heal and strengthen in between each workout!

At Home Or In The Studio?

One of the hardest decisions to make is whether you should do your Pilates workouts at home, or as part of a class in a dedicated studio.

There is a certain sense of freedom to working out at home, and is likely to be more preferable to beginners who are perhaps anxious about being around other people whilst working out.

However, you should ensure that you warm up appropriately before you work out to prevent any injury, and ensure that you target all parts of your body with your workout.

On the other hand, studio workouts are excellent as the trainers will be able to help give you advice on form and technique if you find that you’re struggling, and can also help you to design the best workout schedule for you too!

Using Equipment VS Using A Mat

Traditionally, a lot of Pilates exercises are done on a mat, but some of the exercises you might find in your PIlates workout will feature the use of varying forms of equipment, whether that’s a workout ball, fitness bands, or magic circles.

Exercises that simply make use of the mat are great for many reasons, but the best reason is that as long as you have your mat with you, you can do them anywhere!

Which is great if you’re someone who regularly travels.

But, using equipment allows you to really expand on the more basic exercises found in your Pilates workout, and can help to add some variety to your regular schedule.

In addition to this, they can also help you to increase resistance in the exercises, which leads to a heavier workout on your muscles and therefore helps to build strength quicker.

Length Of Workout 

Deciding how long your workout should be is entirely up to you, if you only do one workout per week, it might be a good idea to have a longer workout, and if you’re someone who is able to workout multiple times a week, then you could also shorten them too.

The typical Pilates workout lasts around 45 minutes, but even just a 10 minute session can provide a great boost to both your mental and physical health, even helping out with your circulation, brain function, and fatigue!

Summary

To summarize, the ideal schedule for your Pilates workout is ultimately down to a number of factors, but mainly what suits your lifestyle and fitness goals best, so whether you’re only working out once a week, or working out multiple times a week, Pilates will be able to help you improve both your body health as well as your mental health too!