Aero Pilates is basically an extension to the original teachings of Joseph Pilates. Joseph Pilates originally developed the concept we know today as Pilates, to help people achieve greater muscle strength and stabilization, through performing various resistance exercises on a consistent basis. It was very popular with dancers and athletics as it concentrated on effective breathing, injury prevention, alignment of core parts of the body, stabilization, stretching and muscle strengthening. Originally, Pilates movements were practised solely by using your own body weight, or perhaps with some small extra accessories like a resistance rubber band.
Aero Pilates however, is the concept of using machines, as part of your Pilates home equipment collection, to help implement the teachings of Joseph Pilates, because it enables one to exercise multiple muscles at once, rather than being restricted to concentrating on a single set of muscles, if you were exercising by yourself without the aid of a machine. Using machines also enables one to strengthen and align more muscles in the body faster, with great resistance and with better results, as a greater range of complimentary exercises are able to be performed with the aid of a machine. Using a machine in your Pilates workout, will also help you to achieve better stabilization of the core muscle group, which will improve flexibility and posture.
Aero Pilates not only uses the original teachings of Joseph Pilates of movements to enhance strength and stabilization, it also adds an extra component and that is with the use of a vertical trampoline, known as a cardio rebounder. This mini trampoline provides low impact cardiovascular training, which helps to improve the health of your heart and accelerate weight loss. Using a cardio rebounder, is gentle on your joints and connective tissue so as to not increase the chance of injury, but to instead consistently strengthen weaker parts of the muscles that are not used regularly. This form of pilates can help to increase your aerobics endurance, as well as increase muscle strength. By using an aero Pilates machine, you can maintain lean muscle, increase flexibility in the hips which is so important as we age and also increase your strength to body weight ratio.
Uniquely, the concept of Aero Pilates can now offer you a complete body health solution and function in one machine. There are a number of Pilates machines available currently on the market, which would make great additions to your Pilates home equipment collection. They all achieve a similar purpose. All of the machines have varying features of comfort, resistance levels and can be constructed from wood or metal. Depending on your budget, you can purchase an aero Pilates machine to use from home from 0, or as high as 00 for the top of the line models.
Currently on the market, the two wooden machines are the Aero Pilates Performer and the Pro, and the metal machine just called the Aero Pilates. All of the aero Pilates machines however have similar features that enable you to perform more than 50 different types of strengthening and toning exercises, that simply wouldn't be possible using a mat and your own body weight alone. If you are wondering though, how on earth you learn all of these moves for the machine don't worry, as every aero Pilates machine available at the moment will come with an instructional video or DVD outlining the vast range of exercises that you will be able to perform, from the comfort of home.
Also, just the trampoline component of the Pilates machines, the Aero Pilates Cardio Rebounder, can also be purchases alone without having to purchase a whole aero Pilates machine. This would be a reasonable solution for someone who was on a tighter budget, but has some experience in Pilates and may already own some resistance exercise tools, like a Pilates exercise circle/ring or resistance power cords and just wants to be able to add the cardio component to their existing Pilates exercise regime.
