This is only half of our studio!

Also, We have two new instructors who are getting Booty Ballet certified this coming weekend! Look for those classes to begin in late May or early June.

In the meantime, we have added over 20 new classes per week, including new ones like Recoil on the Pilates springboards. The springboards take Reformer work to the next level by requiring you to really know how to stabilize in many different situations. The Reformers are great because they teach you how to stabilize while helping you keep good form, but the springboards challenge all of that and demand even more. These classes are best for people who already have experience on the Reformers and are feeling ready to take that work to the next level.

We also have Pilates for Men back on the schedule! Joseph Pilates trained elite military and police forces before he made it big in the dance world here, and we have stripped the work back down to his original aesthetic for this class: we focus on strengthening the back properly, opening up the chest and shoulders, flexibility, and of course on the core. Instead of doing more work for the prime movers (like in Cross FIt), most men would benefit from spending some time strengthening their stabilizing musculature and bringing balance back into their bodies. Trust us, your back will thank you later.

Lots of new and exciting things happening at the studio this spring and summer and we look forward to seeing you there! Please let us know if there are any classes or class times that you would like to see on the schedule.  Thanks all!

Why did you decide to start Pilates?

In 2004, I had injured my knee and wasn’t able to run so I needed to find an exercise that was low impact.  A friend had told me about Pilates on the reformer and I signed up for a class and have been hooked since!

What do you like best about Pilates?

I love being active and enjoy running.  I have never been a fan of lifting weights or stretching.  Pilates is a perfect complement to my cardio routine as I am able to stretch, lengthen and tone with the Pilates exercise repertoire either on the mat, reformer and chair.

How do you describe Pilates to your friends?

A workout like no other!  Take one reformer class and you will be hooked!

Why do you like coming to our studio?

With moving to Seattle, one of the things I was most concerned about was finding a Pilates studio that I liked.  There are quite a few studios with different methods of teaching so I had tried a few studios out before discovering Young!  I had learned about Young’s through a Groupon special and after the first class I knew this was the studio for me.  Brooke and Dave Young are great teachers that put together classes that not only challenge you but are fun too!

What are your health/fitness goals for the rest of 2012?

Shortly after starting Pilates I realized how amazing I felt.  I wanted to help others feel that way by teaching them so I have always wanted to get certified as a Pilates Teacher.  At the beginning of this year I started in Young’s Teacher Training class!  We are half way through the training and it has been challenging but great.  I can’t wait until I am certified and able to teach!

Requirements:
* Full certification preferred; Mat and Reformer required
* Minimum one year of teaching experience
* Continual interest in client development, class development and personal development

We offer private, duet and group classes and we are looking to expand our current class schedule as much as possible this spring and summer. If interested, please send resume to brooke@younpilates.com.

Why did you decide to start Pilates?

One of my best friends lives in San Diego and she started going to Pilates a couple of years ago. I only see her a few times a year and last summer when I visited her I could totally see a change in her body. It was amazing. It was still a huge mystery to me. After I came back from San Diego I bought a Groupon for another Pilates studio and my first visit was not pleasant. I put that on Facebook and several of my friends told me to give Pilates another chance – at another studio.  That’s when I found Young Pilates. I believe that was last August and I am totally addicted now.

What do you like best about Pilates?

I love that it’s low impact. I love the feeling of stretching my muscles and strengthening my core.I also love the tiny class sizes  I have defined muscles in my arms now that I discovered one morning in the shower. It has been thrilling to watch my body tighten up at the age of 50. My husband has really noticed the change as well – and needless to say he is very supportive of my new addiction. My friends are probably getting a bit tired of me flexing my new-found muscles. But the best thing about going to Young Pilates is that I actually look forward to working out now – I get excited. My husband teases me because I’ll say “I get to do Pilates in 12 hours!” I never thought I would love working out so much.

How do you describe Pilates to your friends?

I like o keep it a bit of a mystery – they can see the difference in me - in my body and my attitude about working out. I also once put as my Facebook status: “If Pilates was a man I would marry him.”

Why do you like coming to our studio?

You are both so supportive and treat all of us as though we are your personal friends.  You were very patient with me when I was brand new and just learning. It’s such a refreshing experience compared to going to the huge classes at the gym.

What are your health/fitness goals for 2012?

I have lost 23 pounds and dropped 4 sizes since July doing Weight Watchers and mainly Pilates. I would like to continue on my weight loss journey for a total of 30 pounds. I want to continue to progress with Advanced Pilates 2 to 3 times a week. I have only worked with the Wunda Chair a few times and I love it. I want to increase my cardio with runnning and Zumba classes.

Why did you decide to start Pilates?

I felt that I was in need of a structured fitness regimen in order to avoid a work place injury as well as to get back into shape. I had two friends taking a class with Dave and Brooke and was invited to join, after the first class I haven’t looked back.

What do you like best about Pilates?

I love the low impact, developing core strength as well as the stretching aspect. Since starting I no longer get tension headaches and find that I am able to have a much high level of activity without any of the problems I had before Pilates. Not to mention increased energy and a greater sense of well-being.

How do you describe Pilates to your friends?

Aside from Awesome? I usually describe it as a low impact work out that has the best of resistance training, the stretching of yoga, with a focus on core strength.

Why do you like coming to our studio?

I love the attitude that Brooke and Dave bring to sessions, it feels like every person that walks through the door is important to them. It seems like every one that is there is friendly and happy to share insights or their Pilates tips.

What are your health/fitness goals for 2012?

This year the goals are pretty simple, continue towards increasing strength and lowering my BMI, as well as participating in the Columbia Tower climb. The company I work for is sponsoring a team and it looks like it will be fun, we have even roped Dave in to running with us.

Here’s a bold statement: If everyone Post 50 and postpartum did pilates, we’d all be stronger, leaner and more agile; breathe better; stand better; be more focused and — who knew? — have better sex. I stumbled on that last attribute in a piece called “Pilates’ Dirty Little Secret” written by “The Huffington Post” blogger and Pilates instructor Corrie McCrae. What’s the “dirty” secret? “Pilates makes sex better,” McCrae wrote, before elaborating on the unbearable lightness and orgasmic attributes of the pelvic floor exercises that are staples in pilates.

I hadn’t thought about that last detail until a friend and recent pilates devotee enthused: “Pilates is the sex of exercise.” When I asked her to elaborate, she opined: “I would imagine that anyone performing spread-eagle poses and pelvic thrusts while laying down on a leather bench with stirrups in their feet, lifting rhythmically and concentrating on their ‘core,’ is going to be reminded of other kinds of pelvic thrusts with out without stirrups. Or, is it just me? It’s obvious.”

The “stirrups” to which she referred are part of the pilates’ Reformer, an ingenious carriage-based machine with pulleys, springs and straps, providing total resistance training that’s both extremely difficult and strangely effortless.

“What’s not obvious,” my friend continued, “is the whole idea of the ‘core,’ or the idea that our energy comes from the center of our being and that that’s the part we want to strengthen. That, to me, is sexual, too. The idea of concentrating on the way the body feels as it does these various movements. Being quiet. Feeling our limitations and seeing how our body changes after being stretched in ways it’s never before moved. Whether one is a mind/body devotee or not, one naturally becomes fascinated by the idea, because the act of doing the pilates movements is so totally mind/body connected. You have to concentrate as you’re instructed and you have to be totally conscious of what your body is doing and ‘thinking.’”

The importance of core strength in pilates and the mind/body connection are undeniable. In this regard pilates is similar to yoga, only far more forgiving and with a lot less attitude, too. William Broad recently took yoga to the task in “The New York Times” in his piece “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body. Yoga teacher Glenn Black told Broad that both yoga students and experienced yogis “injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable. Instead of doing yoga, ‘they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition.’”

This may explain why many people discover pilates later in life, after other exercises have failed them, injuries have accrued or “underlying physical weaknesses” have literally settled into their bones. (One of my instructors came to the practice after his body was thrashed by years of professional rugby and his tibia was replaced by a metal rod.)

Personally, I practiced yoga back before it became as commercialized as Starbucks. My knees were a mess at the time and yoga was simply too hard on them. Trying to stand on my head with my legs in lotus position next to a levitating yoga jock wasn’t much fun, either. After years of “yogatude” I took my weary knees to pilates for physical therapy and developed a mind/body connection and endurance I hadn’t felt since my 20s. (News flash: As pilates becomes more accessible, it also becomes more affordable. Some studios, like the one where I practice, offer $12 community classes and other practical options.)

In terms of the mind/body/sex connection, I have yet to discover the Kama Sutra of pilates but did find more ado about such matters on the web, including Tonya Sheridan’s “8 Ways Pilates Improves Your Sex Life” and an “Everything About Pilates” site that featured a piece called “The Secret Ingredients Of How To Have Better Sex Doesn’t Come From A Cake Recipe.”

I’m not sure what Joseph Pilates would have said about those “secret ingredients” or whether he kept that “dirty little secret” to himself. Born in Germany, Pilates was a Jack LaLanne of his time — a health and fitness fanatic who invented his system of physical training in the early 20th century when the air du temps wasn’t particularly open-minded about sex. Back then he called his system “contrology,” because control is one of six essential principles in pilates. (The other five are centering, flow, breath, precision and concentration.)

Sex aside, Joseph Pilates did have much to say about the relationship between physical well-being and age. Somewhat presciently, back when people’s life spans were half what they are today, he wrote: “We retire too early and we die too young, our prime of life should be in the 70′s and old age should not come until we’re almost 100.” Pilates didn’t make it to 100, but he did live a strong, vigorous 84 years. His name and legacy, however, live on.

Pippa Middleton’s shapely posterior was, undoubtedly, one of the talking points of 2011. It didn’t quite upstage the royal bride but it came close. When it emerged that Ms Middleton regarded Pilates lessons as “something of a weekly necessity,” her teacher, Margot Campbell, was besieged by journalists and publishers waving large cheques, desperate to know how she had single‑handedly sculpted the “rear of the year.”

Her devotion to Pilates has obviously paid off, and we are happy to help you work on your own version of “rear of the year.” Ask your instructor for exercises you can do to work on a shapely backside. We can’t promise it will lead to a Prince Charming, though!