Give Your Life a Jump Start with Yoga or Pilates

We all know that after working hard all day, the thought of getting up, getting dressed up and heading down for an hour and a half work out never looks quite as attractive as curling up on the sofa with a packet of Monster Munch and the latest on Holby City. However, if you keep putting off these exciting chances at getting out of the house, you will soon find you’ve worked yourself into a stale routine and managed to avoid any chance of a social life!

London is a huge city, but most people find that the size of it makes it even harder to get to know people and to forge a bond. It isn’t like living in a town or village, often your neighbours keep to themselves and your work colleagues are so busy that they don’t want to spend their evenings with the same people they’ve spent the day with. Instead, many Londoners choose to take evening classes, which give them the perfect opportunity to meet likeminded people who just want to combine the enjoyment of doing something social in the evening with getting fit.

Keeping healthy in London is easier said than done, especially when jogging along some of the roads is akin to taking a stroll down the centre lane of the M25. Gym memberships are particularly expensive in the capital and its residents usually want to exercise on their own. Instead, why not enrol yourself in a Pilates class or yoga class? Both are popular because they give you a workout that stretches and tones muscles rather than working up a sweat, so you don’t finish the day completely exhausted. The next day you will feel a satisfying ache perhaps, but you don’t have to worry about being unable to get up the next morning.

What’s the Difference???

Both involve a lot of stretching, a lot of breathing, and a lot of people in Lycra bending over themselves on mats. While Yoga was developed centuries ago in the East, Pilates was developed in the West by a German and is actually only around eight years old, having built upon a lot of the basic principles and practices of yoga. It can’t be denied that there are certain similarities, but each benefits different people in different ways depending on how much effort you want to put in and what you want to get out of it.

Pilates focuses on building the correct posture and alignment using your body’s natural shape, and stretches muscles to lengthen, strengthen and enhance them. If you’re wondering how that’s going to make you look better when you catch a glimpse of yourself after a shower, it will generally tone up the muscles of your body and give you flat, firm abdominal muscles. Having tried only a couple of weeks of Pilates in school, I was shocked to discover that I developed noticeable abdominal definition even after only two classes a week. Because Pilates is such a fashionable form of exercise at the moment, there are thousands of classes available all across London. Pilates classes in East and West London are taken care of by The BeautCamp, who have studios near Notting Hill and Islington and offer you the chance to get a figure like that of Elizabeth Hurley.

Yoga looks at the health of more than just muscles and joints, it is said to ‘massage your internal organs’. It’s hard to tell whether massaging your liver is a beneficial practice, but the benefits of yoga are well known and with a combination of that and a good detox, many people find that they feel much, much healthier in a relatively short amount of time. Yoga Place are based in Westminster and have an appropriately enlightened and peaceful website hailing the benefits of meditation, evening classes and even yoga workshops.

If you’re looking to lose some serious weight, there might be other evening classes with more vigorous exercise routines that are better suited for you, such as salsa dancing, but if you want to keep your body on the right side of health, yoga and Pilates are quick and effective solutions that don’t exhaust you.

Sam is a freelance article writer who lives and works in the UK and specialises in creative writing and fiction.