Should You Do Pilates Every Day?

Pilates is known as safe and effective exercise but is more really better? Although It may not be necessary to do Pilates every single day to reap the rewards, the founder of Pilates, Joseph Pilates, did recommend doing at least 10 minutes every day.

Actually, doing Pilates just a few times a week is sufficient to create positive changes. But once the benefits of Pilates start kicking in, many of us are inspired to do Pilates as often as we can. Pilates, as people know, is oddly addictive.

If you've recently taken up Pilates are now wondering "How regularly can I do a Pilates workout?" and "Is it safe and beneficial to do Pilates every day?" Let's take a look at some concerns people have about daily workouts, how Pilates is adaptable to daily training, and what you will want to keep in mind as you create a balanced Pilates workout routine.

Pilates and Strength Training

Many people who regularly do strength training and other higher intensity exercise systems know that they need to take time off between workouts—in order to build strength you have to tax the muscle enough to tear it down a bit. Then, the muscle rebuilds stronger than it was before.

To this end, Pilates workouts will emphasize things like awareness, functional alignment, breath, and coordination. This multidimensional approach gives us the opportunity to shift the focus of our workouts, making it possible to do a safe and interesting workout every day.

How to Do Pilates Every Day

Pilates is a true multi-tasking workout for your body and your mind. Who doesn't need some of that every day? Use these guidelines to incorporate Pilates into your daily routine.

Vary Your Workout

Joseph Pilates firmly believed that the workout should be varied and that the way to maximize the effect of each move was by doing it with full attention, and with low repetitions. Taking a cue from Joe, the ideal Pilates practice rotates between different muscle groups, shifts intensity levels, and balances our exercises in terms of flexion and extension within each workout, and in our daily workouts over time.

Read the following passage directly from Joseph Pilates:

"Contrology [Pilates] is not a fatiguing system of dull, boring, abhorred exercises repeated daily ad-nauseam....The only unchanging rules you must conscientiously obey are that you must always faithfully and without deviation follow the instructions accompanying the exercises and always keep your mind wholly concentrated on the purpose of the exercises as you perform them."

Find Your Rhythm

The best idea is to use a variety to your advantage. This will have a lot to do with tuning into yourself and adjusting your focus and energy levels for any given day. A good rhythm for doing Pilates workouts over time might be to do a physically challenging workout one day and follow up with a day or two that are easier on the muscles. Use those days to emphasize the integration of the Pilates principles into your workout.

For example, you could do a day of focusing on working with full attention and doing the moves in an easy flowing manner. Then, bring those elements into another more physically demanding workout the next day.

This way, the muscles get to rest and re-build for strength while you continue to train. If you work in a studio, rotating apparatus so that you perform mat on certain days, Reformer or Wunda Chair or Cadillac on alternate days will keep you in a full-body training protocol.

The Bottom Line

So, the answer to our "daily Pilates?" question is YES, you can do Pilates safely and effectively every day. The key is to vary the workouts, keep them targeted, and if a particular muscle group is challenged one day, give it just a moderate workout the next. That probably means that you will be doing some shorter workouts on your own and that you won't want to go to an intermediate or advanced level class every day.