How many times a week should I be practicing Pilates?
As like many of my other blog post topics, the reason I’ve chosen this subject to write about is because I’ve been asked the question so many times - “How often should I practice Pilates”?
The short answer is as much as possible! The more detailed answer - as usual, is that it depends on a lot of things!
Are you practicing Pilates for a specific reason?
For example to help reduce lower back pain, or you are trying to correct an un-ideal posture…if so it depends how much of a problem those things are causing you, and how quickly you want to correct them as to how much time you are prepared to invest every week in correcting the problem.
Is Pilates the only form of exercise that you do?
If Pilates is your only form of exercise, then you will need to be practicing this much more than someone who is maybe attending the gym, doing Yoga and walking, and Pilates is just supplementing those other forms of exercise.
Are you generally fairly active or do you have a very sedentary lifestyle?
For example if you walk the dog 2-3 times a day and have a job that involves moving around a lot, then this is very different to someone who commutes by car, sits at a desk 9-5, and then sits on the sofa watching all evening.
Depends on your starting point
If you haven’t done any exercise for 20 years, that is a very different starting point to someone who say has been very active all of their life. There are also other life events for example childbirth, injury and surgery that have a massive impact on our bodies – our strength and energy levels and our range of movement. Joseph Pilates originally designed his method as rehabilitation for people who were injured or ill in the Internment camp he was in during WW1. He originally called his method Contrology and described it as a return to life through Contrology. You can reads more about the history of Pilates here.
Depends on your goals and how quickly you want to get there
If there is a large gap between where you are now, and where you want to be, and you want to achieve your goal quickly, you are going to have to put the work in! Joseph Pilates famously said that in 10 sessions you will FEEL a difference, in 20 sessions you will SEE a difference, and in 30 sessions you will have A WHOLE NEW BODY! My understanding is that this is based on regular practice of circa 60 minutes a day, so if you have the time and the motivation, you could have a whole new body in 30 days!
Conclusion
You will get lots of benefits from practicing Pilates for an hour a week, but if you have the time you will get FAR MORE benefits from practicing 45-60 minutes 2-3 times a week. If you want to get to your goals quicker, then practicing 4-5 times a week will get you there. However, I wouldn’t recommend diving straight in from nothing to 4-5 times a week – build up to that over around 3-4 weeks. Also, if you are recovering from injury or illness, I would suggest starting with shorter more regular sessions – so maybe 20 minutes at a time and building up from there.