A German National of Greek Descent

Joseph Pilates was born in Düsseldorf, Germany in the year 1880 and was a German national but of Greek descent and was an avid exercise enthusiast who was fond of skiing, gymnastics, diving, and a martial arts student who developed his body into excellent condition and was, in his teens, fitness charts model.

During the 1918 influenza pandemic, he was busy investigating ways to rehabilitate bed-ridden victims and so he was able to create a series of movements which anyone could practice in closed confines and he later began to train professional boxers among who was Max Schmeling, the noted heavyweight champion.

Rather than perform many repetitions of each exercise, Pilates liked lesser and more exact movements that required control as well as form and, in this endeavor, he designed at least 500 specific exercises and the most frequent of these was the mat work that involved a series of callisthenic motions that did not require any weights or apparatus and could be performed on a padded mat.

Pilates was a firm believer that mental health as well as physical health were vital for each other and he created a method of total body conditioning that laid emphasis on correct alignment, centering, concentration, control, precision as well as breathing and flowing movements and called them The Pilates Principles that resulted in greater flexibility, strength, toning of the muscle, awareness of the body, more energy as well as better mental concentration. In addition, Pilates was also able to design five key pieces of unique exercise equipment which would, according to him, give better results.