A souped up version of Pilates? Tania Gomez roadtests this new workout to see just how tough it is
I have been on a bit of a break from Pilates for awhile. Not because we'd had a falling out; my workout routine had just been all about doing super-sweaty-red-in-the-face types of workouts that I'd forgotten about how great Pilates can be. I hit a wall with my workout routine recently where I was just bored with what I was doing and I thought it was time to mix it up a bit. Enter KX Pilates.
I've tried both mat and reformer Pilates before and found them to be quite tough. Weak abs have nowhere to hide when faced with a strenuous Pilates workout. I'd heard that KX can be quite the workout, and because it's been a long time between Pilates sessions, I opted for a beginner class to be on the safe side.
I attended my first class at KX Pilates in Sydney's Surry Hills and was taken through the equipment by the instructor Dave. So far, so good, nothing too scary.
We started the class by doing some leg exercises using a Pilates ring and it was during this that I was promptly reminded how much Pilates burns. After just a few minutes my thighs were majorly on fire and soon after that my legs were actually shaking uncontrollably from doing numerous repetitions.
We continuted to torture work our legs by doing a move that required us to stretch out our right leg on the machine carriage and lift our left leg up in the air to work the glutes. I actually really enjoyed this particular move until Dave reminded us that we had to control the up and down movement of our left leg slooowly to really work into the legs and butt. FYI slowly = painful. We of course, had the pleasure of doing this using the other leg to even things out.
The rest of the class was challenging. Just when I thought I had a move nailed, Dave would come along and adjust me to the correct position and the intensity felt like it was turned up about 150 per cent. I felt like I was really working those teeny, tiny, hard to find muscles that my cardio and resistance training workouts just didn't seem to be doing. My abs, arms, legs, and butt were all screaming by the end. But that's the beauty of Pilates; you're reaching all those forgotten muscles, working them like crazy and in turn reshaping your body.
I left the class feeling like I'd really done some hard work and this was confirmed when I woke up the next day and was in a world of hurt that I hadn't felt in awhile. My body felt like it had really been genuinely challenged.
Post-KX I'm now planning to add a few Pilates sessions to my usual training regime. I think it's time we well and truly got back together.
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