Pilates Express by Lynn Robinson

Suitable for all fitness levels, these 10-minute mini workouts are each designed for a different part of your day – morning, noon and evening.

Starting with The New Fundamentals, Lynne Robinson’s programme features more than 100 illustrated step-by-step exercises, many of which are brand new to Pilates. As well as increasing your strength and flexibility, there are dedicated exercises to boost your immune system and improve the efficiency of your breathing. You’ll also discover how Pilates can benefit both your mental and physical health, helping you to reset your lifestyle, cope with stress and restore balance in your body.

Whether you want to lose weight, improve your fitness or tone up, this essential guide will help you integrate Pilates into your daily life and achieve your goals.

Review

Well this is a new type of review for me, because Pilates Express is not a book you read in the traditional sense! You interact with it, read the instructions and hopefully gain a healthier lifestyle as a result.

On the cover is the rather inspiring sentence – GET MAXIMUM RESULTS IN MINIMUM TIME- but is this possible and for the fitness shy like me, can I gain even a modicum of benefit to my mental and physical health?

I am happy to say that I think I can and so can you!

The book is broken down into handy and easy to follow sections and hints on how you can get maximum benefit from easy to manage workouts. Importantly it doesn’t just go straight into the different types of movements like Hip Hinge or Spine twirls, but gets to the roots of the fundamental part of any exercise program, preparation and understanding. With sections about the importance of controlled breathing, mediation, which is an integral part of the Pilates ethos.

How to eat properly to compliment exercise, how diet and exercise affects your immune system and most importantly of all how to prepare before you start. There is a section of handy tips, which I found very helpful and they gave me a lot of confidence. Exercise tends to overwhelm my disorganized mind, but these helped me gain a clearer understanding of what the author was trying to do, make Pilates accessible to all. I loved how you can learn about good technique away from the pressure in a class, or because there is no class near you. It is all written in clear and concise language, that is accessible to both the beginner and the more experienced.

Best of all, all the exercise come with details instructions and photo’s that you can compare yourself to and your know-how. I am quite a visual person and so I rely on these, to help me get each part of the movement right and I found them easy to follow. Besides the photo’s and instructions there are sections that contain, challenges and benefits, which helped me focus on I am trying to achieve, how my health will be improved by each workout. The watchpoints aim to guide you on the more intricate element of each movement, improving technique and ensuring you gain the greatest benefit from this program.

Lynne Robinson wants this to become a part of your everyday and so broadens her book to include really good advice on how to fit exercise into your day, whether that is the morning, afternoon or evening. You can even consider integrating it into your working life, by following the advice about breathing technique or correct posture, and area I need to work on and which I found really well explained. So much so that rather than being daunted, I felt this is something I can achieve.

Whether you want to become a devote of this form of exercise or make it part of an overall fitness and lifestyle change, Pilates Express is a handy, inspiring and easy to use instruction book.

You cam purchase this book from Amazon and Waterstones.

About the author

Lynne Robinson is one of the world’s most respected Pilates teachers. She is the founder of Body Control Pilates, which is seen as an international benchmark for safe and effective teaching. Her bestselling books include The Pilates Bible, Pilates for Life and Pilates for Pregnancy. She has also produced highly popular DVDs. In demand internationally, she frequently lectures at conferences throughout the world and has
taught Pilates in countries as varied as the US, Japan, South Africa, Thailand and Australia.