Pilates

The most acclaimed, comprehensive guide for Pilates is back with all-new photos and more variations, modifications, and progressions than ever before.

In Pilates, Third Edition, world-renowned Pilates expert Rael Isacowitz draws on over four decades of experience to offer you a path to total health and well-being through the Pilates method. Whether you are a beginner, a teacher using Pilates in a therapeutic setting, or a veteran instructor working with athletes, this resource will help you tap into the potential of the mind-body connection to gain the elusive edge in training.

Pilates starts with the foundation for all the exercises by presenting an in-depth treatment of mat work, including photos, imagery, and detailed instruction on breathing to help you perform the movements correctly. After the mat work, Pilates goes on to apply the same depth of instruction and photos to the full range of Pilates apparatus:

• Reformer
• Cadillac
• Wunda chair
• Ladder barrel, also known as the high barrel
• Step barrel, also known as the spine corrector
• Ped-a-pul
• Arm chair (F2 chair)
• Magic circle

There are more than 200 exercises, categorized by body region. The exercises include difficulty ratings, recommended resistance ranges, and explanations of not only how to perform the movements but also how practitioners will benefit from them. New variations, modifications, and progressions for many of those exercises offer additional options for tailoring the exercises based on ability, skill, or preference.

The book includes a purposeful grouping of exercises into programs that work all regions of the body and progress from the fundamental level through the intermediate and advanced levels to challenge you at all stages of Pilates practice.

Pilates is a holistic approach to well-being that offers a bridge between mind and body, between everyday life and optimal performance, and between rehabilitation and healthy movement. When used to its full potential, it can enhance every aspect of life. So whether you are young or old, are able-bodied or live with restricted mobility, Pilates can improve your balance, concentration, coordination, posture, muscle tone, core strength, flexibility, and overall well-being.

Rael Isacowitz is a world-renowned practitioner and teacher of Pilates. With over four decades of Pilates practice and achievement, he is a prominent lecturer and teacher at symposia, universities, colleges, and studios around the globe. He received his bachelor’s degree and teaching credentials from Israel’s prestigious Wingate Institute, where he subsequently joined the teaching faculty. He later earned a master’s degree in dance from the University of Surrey in England.

Isacowitz’ early Pilates teachers included Alan Herdman and several of the first-generation Pilates teachers (known as the Elders), including Ron Fletcher, Romana Kryzanowska, Eve Gentry, and Kathy Grant, who Rael regards as his greatest teacher and mentor. He later had the pleasure of meeting Lolita San Miguel, who became a fast friend and lifelong inspiration.

Isacowitz has mastered all levels of the Pilates repertoire and is noted in the industry for his unique athleticism; synthesis of body, mind, and spirit; and passion for teaching. In 1989, he founded Body Arts and Science International (BASI) Pilates, which has developed into one of the foremost Pilates education organizations in the world. BASI Pilates is currently represented in over 120 host locations spanning 45 countries. It is not the growth of the company that makes Rael most proud but rather its transformation from being about movement to becoming a movement for positive change in the world.

Isacowitz’s Pilates and Pilates Anatomy, Second Edition (coauthored with Karen Clippinger, Human Kinetics, 2020) have received worldwide acclaim and been translated into multiple languages. He has published a series of comprehensive professional workbooks (over 1,000 pages of content), taught in the BASI Legacy Program, that serve as a road map for professionals. He produced a series of DVDs sold worldwide, conceived the original designs for BASI Systems equipment, and created the groundbreaking software BASI Interactive. He was a founding board member of the Pilates Method Alliance and is a regular contributor to several industry publications, including Pilates Style magazine, for which he was the Q&A expert for over seven years.

Creativity, passion, and energy suffuse his work, which he continues to practice daily. Rael regards Pilates and specifically BASI Pilates among his life’s greatest gifts.