Far more than a recent fitness craze, Pilates has been developed and practiced since the 1920's.

 

In 1914 after WW1 broke, Joseph Pilates became a prisoner of war here in the UK, he was transferred to a camp on the Isle of Man and became a nurse helping injured soldiers. It was in these hospitals that he developed equipment to rehabilitate the soldiers taking springs from the bed and giving exercises to the bed ridden.

 

He started devising his system of original exercise that later became ‘Contrology’.

 

In 1926 he moved to New York with his wife Clara and they opened their first studio.