Pilates indeed tones abs, but does little else

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Pilates may do more for your gut than stomach crunches, but don’t expect it to work miracles on your cardiovascular fitness or body weight, according to new study findings.

Developed in the early 20th century for dancers, Pilates has now become a mainstay of gyms across the U.S. However, there is little information about how many calories people typically burn with the technique.

After monitoring ten people during Pilates workouts, researchers found that a basic routine burns as many calories as a session of moderate stretching.

Intermediate workouts burned as many calories as basic stepping, while advanced workouts approximated the calories burned during speed walking at 4.5 miles per hour.

However, Pilates exercises appeared to provide a better workout for the external obliques, or muscles on either side of the abdomen, than basic crunches. The move known as the “Criss-Cross” gave those muscles the best workout.

The “Teaser” and “Roll-Up” exercises also challenged the rectus abdominis muscle, in the mid-section of the abdomen, more than standard bent-knee crunches.

These findings show that Pilates can be great for the abdominal muscles, but won’t do much to help you lose weight, study author Dr. Michele Olson of Auburn University Montgomery in Alabama told Reuters Health.

“You can say Pilates is legitimate core training,” she said. But if you’re trying to lose weight, “you’re going to definitely have to supplement with something else,” such as a running regimen and diet, Olson noted.

During the study, Olson and her team asked ten people with an average of five years’ experience with Pilates to follow basic, intermediate and advanced Pilates workouts for 30 to 45 minutes each, and measured how many calories they burned.

In a separate experiment, the researchers measured the activity of the abdominal muscles in ten people as they completed five Pilates moves and a standard stomach crunch.

The researchers found that, on average, a person weighing 75 kilograms (or 165 pounds) burns 480 calories per hour from an advanced workout, 390 calories per hour from an intermediate routine, and 276 calories for every hour of a basic Pilates workout.

However, some exercises burned more calories than others. For instance, during the intermediate and advanced workouts, the “Roll-Over, “Jackknife” and “Boomerang” exercises used a higher-than-average amount of calories, while the “Hundred,” “Leg Circles” and the “Seated Twist” burned fewer calories, on average.

In terms of abdominal muscles, Pilates largely out-performed basic abdominal crunches.

Olson and her colleagues presented their findings last week in Las Vegas, Nevada, during the American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness Summit & Exposition.

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