It is perhaps precisely because Pilates has become so undeniably popular that there is such a wide spread of misunderstanding about it. As with anything that becomes known to a wide range of individuals, there is going to be misinformation about Pilates. The same thing applies to any major news story after all.

If five people know about something, the chances are that everything they know about it is correct. If five million people know about something, the chances are that a significant number will have heard and believed at least two or three things that are grossly inaccurate. The following are some myths about Pilates:

1. Pilates is easy. It cannot therefore be useful.

Tell this “fact” to any practitioner of intermediate or advanced Pilates. Better yet, tell it to someone who has tried any number of other forms of exercise and has found due to injury or an underlying condition that Pilates is the only thing that works for them. There are many different grades of Pilates, and the fact that it may not appear to the naked eye to be as “demanding” as working out on a treadmill or a weights machine does not mean that it is either “easy” or unproductive. It is neither, applied correctly.

2. Pilates is a woman’s exercise regime.

Considering that Pilates was devised by a man – a man who used it to turn himself from a sickly child into a teenager who was in demand to pose for conditioning posters – this is perhaps the most idiotic statment currently circulating about Pilates. Women can do Pilates, of course. At the present time, it is perhaps more popular among women than among men – and that may well be because of lazy stereotypes like the above. Pilates is accessible – this does not make it inappropriate for men.

3. Pilates is simply a derivative of yoga.

Pilates is, indeed, connected to yoga and has a lot of yoga principles in it. Joseph Pilates included yoga in the mix when he designed the Pilates method. He also included principles from body-building, but people do not claim Pilates to be a derivative of that. It is more than a derivative, and its benefits go beyond the simple, imagined effects that detractors claim.