Have you been thinking about adding a pilates exercise routine to your daily workouts? If so, you aren't alone. Millions are turning to pilates exercises to help get in shape and manage their physical health. In case you don't know much about pilates though, lets see who can expect to benefit most from a pilates home fitness workout.

First a little explanation about what pilates is. It's a system of set movements that employ isometric exercise to help strengthen the muscles of the body and improve flexibility at the same time. These exercise are very low impact and so they are gentle on the muscles, tendons and ligaments of the body. The movements are also combined with proper breathing techniques to help the exerciser focus on the quality of the movement, and the combination of breathing and physical exercise has been know to improve both mental and physical well being.

Interestingly, dancers were among the first to start the practice of pilates when Joseph Pilates first opened his studio in New York City. The demands that their art form places on their body is very formidable and pilates training helped improve their strength while also cutting down on the amount of injuries that they suffered. Their success led to others adopting the new program and as word grew more and more have been attracted to this new method of exercise.

So who can especially benefit from pilates? Actually the list is fairly long, but some who could get real benefits would include back pain sufferers. It's very hard for those who live with back pain to find any form of exercise that they can do without aggravating their situation. Pilates on the other hand, is very gentle on their back and is designed to build a very strong core of the stomach and back muscles, many times helping eliminate the cause of back pain altogether.

Those who like to play a lot of sports can certainly benefit from a pilates routine as it helps them elongate their muscles and gain better flexibility. This in turn will aid in cutting down on sports related injuries. Often those who play sports employ some kind of strength training which is good, but if you don't also have flexibility, strong muscles can tear easily. So pilates helps you be able to play longer, better, and with less injury.

Elderly and overweight people can use pilates very effectively too. The elderly are losing flexibility as they age and so pilates helps restore a lot of freedom of movement for them. And overweight folks often have a hard time beginning intensive workouts that burn calories without injury. But pilates can help them ease into a more active lifestyle while also slimming their body in the process.

Pilates is actually very good exercise for lots of people, but some do benefit more than others from this particular style of fitness workout. If you have been considering trying it, why not look further into the possibility of making pilates a part of your daily home fitness workout?