Standing Pilates: Strengthen and Tone Your Body Wherever You Are [Paperback]

Joan Breibart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 2004

Perform Pilates postures just about anywhere-- and get faster results!

Joseph Pilates's revolutionary methods of strengthening, toning, and even lengthening the body have become hugely popular all around the world. Now, in Standing Pilates, celebrated Pilates expert Joan Breibart takes Pilates off the floor, showing you step by step how to perform classic postures while standing or sitting.

Breibart, the creator of the first Pilates exercise video, has transformed traditional Pilates floor exercises into a new workout that frees you to perform postures any time, anywhere, without mats, balls, or workout gear. This groundbreaking new method uses your own body weight to help you achieve faster, longer-lasting results. You get clear instruction on how to increase your focus, develop proper form, and strengthen and tone your body more easily and efficiently. Plus, Breibart gives you valuable tips on improving your technique, making modifications to the postures, and varying each exercise to take things up a notch. No matter your current fitness level, Standing Pilates is the revolutionary new way to reshape your body and reach your fitness goals in less time. This exciting new book:
* Features black-and-white photographs throughout that fully illustrate each exercise
* Explains how to exercise smarter to get the body you want
* Provides fundamentals and foundations for retraining your brain to move your body correctly to improve your balance and form
* Presents testimonials from fitness professionals on the benefits of Standing Pilates
* Includes up-to-date contact lists for certified Pilates instructors, those also certified in Standing Pilates, and Pilates Certifying Studios

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Perform Pilates postures just about anywhere— and get faster results!

Joseph Pilates's revolutionary methods of strengthening, toning, and even lengthening the body have become hugely popular all around the world. Now, in Standing Pilates, celebrated Pilates expert Joan Breibart takes Pilates off the floor, showing you step by step how to perform classic postures while standing or sitting.

Breibart, the creator of the first Pilates exercise video, has transformed traditional Pilates floor exercises into a new workout that frees you to perform postures any time, anywhere, without mats, balls, or workout gear. This groundbreaking new method uses your own body weight to help you achieve faster, longer-lasting results. You get clear instruction on how to increase your focus, develop proper form, and strengthen and tone your body more easily and efficiently. Plus, Breibart gives you valuable tips on improving your technique, making modifications to the postures, and varying each exercise to take things up a notch. No matter your current fitness level, Standing Pilates is the revolutionary new way to reshape your body and reach your fitness goals in less time. This exciting new book:

• Features black-and-white photographs throughout that fully illustrate each exercise
• Explains how to exercise smarter to get the body you want
• Provides fundamentals and foundations for retraining your brain to move your body correctly to improve your balance and form
• Presents testimonials from fitness professionals on the benefits of Standing Pilates
• Includes up-to-date contact lists for certified Pilates instructors, those also certified in Standing Pilates, and Pilates Certifying Studios

About the Author

JOAN BREIBART, in 1991, founded the Institute for the Pilates Method, the first membership and certification organization for Pilates professionals. The institute produced the first Pilates video, Working Out the Pilates Way. Her training programs are used worldwide to certify Pilates professionals, and Breibart's organization, the PhysicalMind Institute, is now training hundreds of instructors in Standing Pilates. She regularly writes on all aspects of the Pilates movement, helping to guide its future, which she believes is just beginning.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (December 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471566551
• ISBN-13: 978-0471566557
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Exercise & Fitness > Pilates

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointment, January 19, 2005

By 

Poetry Lover (Portland OR) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Standing Pilates: Strengthen and Tone Your Body Wherever You Are (Paperback)

I am fairly fit and a new convert to Pilates. I bought this book largely on the quality of the reviews and on its do-it-anywhere marketing. Ah, good, I thought. Maybe ways to apply some of the Pilates strengthening principles to standing at the photocopier or in line, or doing the dishes.

The book offers only limited thoughts along these lines at the end, where much last third or so of the book is devoted primarily to lists of practitioners (either out of date or soon to be).

The exercises in this book, especially the recommendations for intermediate and more advanced variations, are about as "do it anywhere" as that of an intermediate vinyasa yoga class, and as a whole constitute a workout that any serious practioner would want to perform in a gym-like setting. In fact, the author suggests you should try to do these exercises around mirrors (don't have a lot of those in my office); she also suggests you can do these things anywhere but helpfully adds that you should to try to avoid knocking into others as you do.

Even accepting that, the book's production is disappointing as well. It is virtually impossible to read and teach yourself the complex inhalation/exhalation and movement patterns while actually performing them. (I don't know why producers of these books don't bother to put a spiral binding on them so that at least it stays flat.) To teach yourself many of the positions while reading requires that the book be just far enough away from your body--especially with something holding the pages flat--as to be barely legible, creating a lot of interruption and frustration. There are simply not enough photographs, which are themselves often hard to "read," and many of the instructions and certain parts of the pre-exercise text seem to have certain logical gaps that make the text harder to follow than it could be.

All of the principles are for me incredibly compelling and worthwhile, and overlap beautifully with yoga. But this should be a well-produced DVD, and not a book. And other than the heightened awareness of posture that mat Pilates naturally creates, I found little other than a short discussion about seated posture that actually merits the "Wherever You Are" slant.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars too hard to follow, May 5, 2005

By 

Lucy the Bargain Hunter - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Standing Pilates: Strengthen and Tone Your Body Wherever You Are (Paperback)

The instuctions were simply too complicated and hard to follow, you really NEED an instructor to do this kind of exercise, which explains why about 1/2 the book is a list of studios and teachers. I did not find this book helpful, I am very sorry to say.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Addition to the Pilates Repertoire, August 11, 2005

By 

NoVaGymGuy (Falls Church, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standing Pilates: Strengthen and Tone Your Body Wherever You Are (Paperback)

I'm giving the book a thumbs up more because I like the Standing Pilates work than because the book is all that great. (In general, I'd rather watch a DVD to learn new exercises, but so far there isn't a decent DVD for Standing Pilates.) Nevertheless, it is well illustrated with numerous photographs that help explain the exercises. If possible, take a Standing Pilates class, then use the book as a reference and reminder of how to do the exercises.