3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid introduction to Pilates-based exercise, April 18 2010
By Lynda Lippin - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ageless Pilates (Paperback)
As a Pilates and Fitness teacher for the last 21 years, I have developed two seemingly at-odds specialties: rehabilitative Pilates & Fitness for people living with illness, injury, and pain and bikini body Pilates & Fitness for the Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret swimsuit supermodel Raica Oliveira and others. So when I saw a preview of fellow Pilates professional Christine Binnendyk's Ageless Pilates: The Secret to Moving Comfortably, Easily and Pain-free for the Rest of Your Life, which promises to teach readers how to stay strong and pain-free throughout their lives, I was impressed enough to want to read the whole book.
Binnendyk's focus in her Ageless Pilates System is always movement without pain, and she tries in this book to break down the complexities of Pilates exercise into bite size pieces for people to more easily digest. The book is divided into 15 minute movement lessons and then more complex 30 minute Pilates-based workouts. She also offers modifications for those with back pain, arthritis, and osteoporosis.
While Binnendyk clearly knows her stuff, the book's layout is so crowded that I found it hard to follow what to do. There are a lot of photos where the models are wearing all black so it is difficult to see body position, along with explanations, watchpoints, and do's and don'ts. The main organizational principle seems to be the ABCs -- Anchor Points (which main areas to focus on), Body Geometry Tips (specific biomechanics to focus on), and Comfort Options (tips on how to stay pain free in a given exercise).
But there is almost too much information here, especially for newbies to Pilates. Something I find important in my teaching is keeping it simple by just explaining exactly what to do and why it's important. Short clear explanations of movements work well for most people. Too much and they tune out or get bored. And while there are some nice basic exercises in here, there are very few recognizable historical Pilates mat exercises and a whole lot of what we call pre-Pilates, or smaller movements. While that is not a huge issue for me, there are many Pilates teachers and students who might question the title.
Ageless Pilates could use some editing to make the explanations easier to follow and would definitely benefit from a cleaner layout and better photos. Still, when all is said and done it offers a good solid introduction to Pilates-based exercise for the general public.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ageless Pilates, Aug 23 2010
By Pilates_4_Life - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ageless Pilates (Paperback)
I can see the value of Ageless Pilates as a self-help book, providing you have lots of time and patience and love detail. However, as a certified Pilates Instructor with a fair amount of experience working with all body types, ages, injuries, etc. I found the book to be overkill. I was hoping to learn something new but lost interest fast. Too much detail and too many photos left me irritated. IMO less would've been more.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ageless Pilates, Aug 7 2010
By Judy - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ageless Pilates (Paperback)
I bought this book to learn a bit about the Pilates method. I found many of the directions difficult to follow. And I found distracting the frequent misspellings, typos, mistakes in grammar and punctuation, and inconsistent layout/typography. In just three pages (38-40) I found that "pubic bone" was spelled "public bone," Kegel was misspelled several times as "kegal," and "laying" was used incorrectly instead of "lying" ("when laying down..." etc.). A movement professional ought to know the correct use of lie/lay. One lays down an object; a person LIES down.
Semicolons are used instead of colons. On page 64, a sentence is left incomplete: "Body Geometry Boost: Try keeping your Anchor Leg Ex-"
On page 39, "Pelvic Clock" is described without indicating in what way this is a "clock"--i.e., the instructions do not explicitly say that the person should rotate the pelvis in a circle, as if rolling around the numbers of a clock. Nothing is said about rotating.
At the least, the author should get an editor for any further editions.