Pilates is a safe and effective form of exercise for all ages and body types. Here are L.A.'s best studios
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. I'm Alyssa Bereznak, the wellness editor at The Times. Here's what you need to know to start your day:
At first glance, Pilates looks easy. At least, that's what I remember thinking in my early 20s when I signed up for a class. You get to lie down, I thought. How hard could it be? The answer to that question, dear reader, arrived through a web of soreness that extended across the long-ignored muscles in my abdomen, butt and thighs the following morning.
I had mistaken a serene workout environment for an unserious one. But the 'militaristic precision' of Pilates, as Times contributor Jackie Snow describes it in our recent guide to the best Pilates studios in L.A., is exactly what makes the exercise such an excellent method of targeting the body parts we compromise at our desk jobs.
Pilates' many accessories, despite their resemblance to torture devices, are designed to work your entire body, maintaining your skeletal alignment and ideal range of motion for a low-impact, full-body workout. It follows that Pilates is an accessible form of exercise for a whole range of ages (including seniors) and body types. It allows you to be easy on your joints but — I cannot emphasize this enough — not your muscles.
As is the case with any new form of exercise, expert supervision can be the difference between an effective workout and an unfortunate injury. Which is why we descended on Los Angeles to evaluate the facilities, instruction and vibes of the countless studios that dot our streets and boulevards.
The resulting 26 businesses we highlight in our new exercise guide series L.A. Circuit keep their class sizes small, and therefore provide personalized adjustment suggestions. You can feel confident that any of our picks will be a safe place for you to, like me, realize that Pilates is not as easy as it looks.
If you happen to be an especially dedicated athlete in need of an even tougher challenge, try Lagree. (Just don't call it Pilates.) And if all this sounds a bit complicated, there's always yoga. Either way, I hope this helps give you a movement road map as we ease into spring.
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