Pilates exercises, like other calisthenic exercises including situps and pushups, work your abdominals, hips, lower legs and thighs to boost flexibility, strength and endurance. Pilates is popular with dancers, athletes and celebrities who want to maintain strength and flexibility without adding bulk. Whether you're planning to stick with mat work or take a class using machines like the Pilates Reformer, Pilates can be part of a comprehensive weight loss regimen if you follow a few guidelines.
Calorie Burning Potential
The longer you do Pilates and the more advanced workouts you try, the more calories you can burn. According to "O, The Oprah Magazine," an average-size woman in a 50-minute Pilates class can burn approximately 175 calories; an advanced Pilates exerciser can burn as many as 375 calories during the same time frame. If you're doing Pilates to lose weight, you should plan to work out at an advanced level at least four days a week.
Putting Calories in Perspective
With Pilates, you'll probably burn more calories -- and ultimately lose more weight -- than you would with yoga. A 50-minute hatha yoga workout burns around 145 calories for an average-size woman, and a power yoga workout for the same time period only burns around 250 calories. But Pilates burns fewer calories than cardiovascular workouts. For instance, dancing for an hour burns around 330 calories for an average-size woman; an hour of aerobics can burn up to 480 calories; and an hour of brisk walking can burn as much as 460 calories.
Benefits of Pilates
Pilates may not help you shed as many pounds as other workouts, but like all strength training exercises, it can help tone and tighten your muscles so that you look slimmer and fit your clothes better -- even if your weight on the scale doesn't change. In addition, practicing Pilates can improve your posture, help you balance better, strengthen your core muscles and may help prevent some types of back pain, according to MayoClinic.com.
Considerations
If major weight loss is your goal, your best option is to combine Pilates workouts with regular aerobic exercise, like biking, walking or running, recommends KidsHealth, an online health information resource maintained by the Nemours Foundation. It's important to make sure your Pilates class instructor is both certified and experienced so that she can help you master correct form and modify moves when you need to. Bad form negates Pilates benefits and can increase your risk for injury.
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