Spring Resistance vs Spring Assistance

September 5, 2008 in Uncategorized by karen | No comments

It’s probably safe to assume that most people are familiar with the concept of using weights and resistance training to increase the strength of the body’s muscles.  You start of with a relatively light weight and as you get stronger you increase the weight.   

 

The Pilates Method, for the most part, uses spring resistance.  The resistance of the springs though, is used in essentially two different ways.  I like to think about it as spring resistance and spring assistance.  This is a concept that took me a while to fully appreciate and I think it gets missed by a lot of practitioners.  Some Pilates exercises use the springs to strengthen the muscles of the body simply by providing resistance, and the stronger you get the greater the resistance you use.  Other Pilates exercises however use the springs to assist the body to perform a particular movement, so instead of resisting against the springs, you are using the assistance of the springs.  In essence, the springs help to pull you through a particular movement, and the stronger you get the less spring assistance you need.

 

One of the main principles of the Pilates Method is that in order to maintain health and fitness the body must move.  The use of springs is remarkable in that it facilitates an improvement of overall strength AND mobility, which is something that weight training does not.  Increasing the weight you lift in a biceps curl will not improve your shoulder flexibility.  The Pilates Method uses springs to give our bodies the resistance they can use to build strength and the assistance they can use to increase movement.