I purchased a Pilates Reformer from QVC. I have never been a exerciser person. In watching the videos with Marjolein she used the expression couch.. quite a few times. It took me awhile to figure it out. It seems the couch muscles are closest to the bone, and create the foundation for the flexible stretch muscles. Those are the muscles the Pilates Reformer addresses, though it comes with a rebounder for cardio. What got me interested was in my work as a home health aide, I witness a lot of Clients with back issues. On the Pilates Reformer, you can just lay down, and move without any effort or pain to the joints. I feel Joe Pilates really addressed the core issue of strengthening the body inside out. I have witnessed Clients hurt by PT. I purchased the Pilates Reformer for myself and each of my adult children families. I posted the below post.. when one of my son's was resisting what I was saying about the Pilates Reformer. I feel the other type of exercising is hammer and nail, if not addressing the "couch" muscles.
Re: Finally through the Pilates Reformer I love exercising..
Postby patty » Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:40 am
Update... with my oldest son there is some resistance with the Pilates.. my youngest says it is probably because of "the no pain no gain" motto. At first he said on his total gym the same kind of exercises can be done.. so I checked the total gym exercise chart .. and all I saw was incline exercises. On QVC this was addressed from a caller.
33:30 Question about total gym. Is incline necessary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSUoc8-ysEk&t=2092s Caller: Am I going to miss the incline?
Marjolein: Let’s talk about incline. Joe Pilates believed, this is really true, that flat was key because #1, when I am training my knees that maybe were injured, you know his dancers were injured or you have imbalances in your body, one shoulder is higher on one side then the other or you are stronger on one side then the other, if you put your body weight on those muscles, those imbalances stay there. If I lie you down and take gravity away, take your body weight away and the machine takes over, now the weak muscles are going to get stronger the tight muscles get longer and all of sudden you get off the first time and you going to see Wow I look, I stand and feel completely different. So it is important to be flat. We could have started incline on our machines but we don’t want too.
Aloha, patty