Strand Studio Pilates

"Im fifty years ahead of my time" Joseph Pilates

The Pilates method was developed by German-born Joseph Pilates. Like many other innovators of physical therapy, childhood frailty gave him the determination to become strong and healthy. He rehabilitated himself by combining eastern and western forms of conditioning, including gymnastics, boxing and yoga. During WW1, while Pilates was in a British internment camp, he became a nurse and practised some of his early rehabilitation ideas on patients. He rigged hospital beds with springs, allowing patients to exercise whilst lying down and moving the springs with their arms and legs. In the 1920s he moved to America and opened his first studio in New York - there the method took off. By the 1960s he had won fame among modern dancers and his clients included Martha Graham and George Balanchine. Though recognised and valued in the US, the Pilates method stayed virtually unknown everywhere else in the world, until it was brought back to Britain in 1970 by Alan Herdman.