Pilates Body in Motion: A Practical Guide to the First 3 Years

it’s an amazing book.
Fitness wise, it’s an amazing book… but even the beginners part I feel would be too much efforts than possible for the body of a beginner to take

I’m a 36 year old male who is fairly healthy but neglected core work in his 20s in favour of building the guns and pecs. As a result, my mobility has suffered, paired with sitting at a desk all day, has lead to me experiencing quite a lot of back pain/issues for years.Just started Pilates after concluding that a look of my back pain was as a result of weak core and poor posture. I decided to give this a go before more drastic measures. So far, so good. A couple of weeks ago, I was struggling to get out of bed. I now find that my ‘powerhouse’ is engaging for this activity and the tightness from before is no longer there. TBH, I’d recommend everyone gives it a go. My wife, who is the mother of our three children, will be using it with me soon! :)As far as the effectiveness of the book is concerned, I’m glad I chose this one. Illustrations are excellent and supported with excellent instructions. I also like the structure of the book which builds upon foundational principles. The user who finishes the book will be working on an ‘advanced’ routine but by that stage, I expect they will be very strong indeed. I’m still on the intro and am happy to remain there until I master and move to the next stage.

I am relatively new to Pilates. Thankfully, I had beginner’s luck, due to the fact that Ungaro’s “Pilates: body in motion” was one of the first two books I bought regarding Pilates. The other was not too good, but this one more than makes up for it.In my opinion, Alycea Ungaro should be praised for writing such an useful and clear book. In the introduction, Ungaro says that “Life wreaks havoc on our bodies”, due to the fact that “Our routines and habits cause us to consistently overuse specific muscles”, but that Pilates can be an antidote to that. She points out that Pilates is “not a mystical cure-all”, and that it is not supposed to replace other forms of exercise but rather complement them, in order to help you to “look better, perform better, and, above all, feel better”.”Pilates: body in motion” has not only good explanations besides each exercise, but also many photographs that allow the reader to understand how to perform each one correctly, and what to do to avoid the more common mistakes.I think it is also worthwhile to highlight that this book is neatly divided into chapters, one for each program (introductory, beginner’s, intermediate, advanced), and one as introduction. That helps the reader to save time, due to the fact that he can find the exercises that correspond to his level quite quickly. What is more, it also gives each person the opportunity to advance at his own pace, something we are not always able to do in a class.On in all, I think that this is an excellent book, and I strongly recommend it to anybody who practices Pilates, or would like to practice it. You won’t be disappointed :)Belen Alcat