Pilates

Pilates has long been mocked as the regimen of middle-aged Manhattan neurotics. Samantha from Sex and the City was an adherent and today social media is awash with so-called “Pilates princesses.” Stefon Diggs, the 6ft, 191lb Washington Commanders wide receiver, has been filmed stretching on – and falling from – a reformer Pilates machine. Since 2020, online searches for Pilates have grown fourfold. But the success of Pilates is comparatively recent. By the time of his death in New York City in 1967, Joseph Pilates’s method was not particularly well-known and, according to friends, he felt bitter about it. Science, he thought, had not recognized his contribution to physical wellness. In his latter years he drank rather too much and chain-smoked cigars.