About Joseph Pilates:
Joseph H. Pilates was born in Germany in 1880. As a child he struggled with rheumatic fever, asthma and rickets. This motivated him to study yoga, martial arts, gymnastics, and boxing in order to improve his health. Combining these various forms he began to develop his own method of exercise with the help of his wife Clara.
While in a British internment camp during World War I, Pilates developed exercises to aid the patients' recovery. He used the hospital beds as exercise equipment. It was this ingenious idea that would later become the Pilates machine known as the Cadillac.

In 1926, Joseph and Clara came to New York City and set up a studio at 939 Eighth Avenue. Over the next fifteen years and beyond, the Pilates method became very popular in the dance community. Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine are just a few of those touched and changed by Pilates work. Pilates named his method 'contrology' and considered it a way of life. Today we know the method by his last name.
Pilates studios continue to open around the world as more exercise enthusiasts discover the benefits of Pilates work.

To The Top