These Simple Pilates Exercises Strengthen Your Core and Will Help You With Better Posture

Slouching at a computer all day can lead to poor posture and back pain. Did you know that spending so much time seated can weaken your core? While walking around can help get your legs moving throughout the workday, Pilates is also a wonderful way to improve posture and strengthen the core.

“Pilates focuses on strengthening all of the muscles that stabilize the trunk and spine, collectively referred to as ‘the core,’” says Laura Wilson, founder of Natural Pilates. The result? Better posture. “People often feel like they get taller after doing Pilates for a few months. Pilates practitioners don’t actually gain inches, but as the abdominal muscles get stronger, posture improves.”

How Pilates can help you tone

Pilates is a form of exercise and conditioning developed by Jospeh Pilates in the early 1920s as a method of injury recovery for dancers. “Pilates is a form of resistance training and helps to build lean muscle mass,” Wilson says. “The more muscle mass a person has, the more calories they are able to burn at rest.”

Pilates is an accessible way for people of all ages to strengthen their muscles. “Because many of the exercises can be done seated or side lying, Pilates can easily be performed even when a person can’t weight-bear or has an injury,” Wilson says. “It is low impact and helps strengthen the smaller supporting muscles of the body.”

Pilates is great on its own, but you can elevate your Pilates exercises using equipment like a resistance band, stability ball, dumbbells, and Pilates circle. But all you need is a mat to get started. To help you strengthen your core, Wilson outlined 11 Pilates exercises to try at home today.