A New York-based Equinox member and his Pilates instructor open up about the life-changing benefits of the stretching and strengthening workout method.
Forged at Equinox is a series highlighting an Equinox member’s foray into a new workout regimen, with help from an expert coach. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
When Aaron Hunt signed up for an Equinox membership, it wasn’t for the unlimited group fitness classes, personal training opportunities, or steam rooms. He already had weight training down pat and was progressively gaining muscle on his own. But in the process, his body became tight and uncomfortable, leading him to seek out chiropractic adjustments, he says. “I wanted to be fit. I wanted to be healthy, but I didn't want to injure myself in the process,” he recalls.
After looking up Pilates and learning about its benefits for strength, mobility, and flexibility, Aaron was sold.
This March, he joined the East 85th Street Club and immediately booked a one-on-one Studio Pilates session with Anastasia Vershinina, a senior Pilates instructor at the Club. The duo have been meeting for twice-weekly private Pilates sessions ever since. “The way that I now put on muscle, the way that I look — I can attribute a lot of that to Pilates,” says Aaron. “I feel like it allowed me to stretch certain muscle groups that I had never stretched before.”
Over the last six months, Aaron has improved his flexibility to the point that he can now touch his toes. And he no longer experiences dizziness when bending over, which Anastasia attributes to the breathwork involved in Pilates. “Pilates is the one thing I really believe helped get rid of that,” says Aaron. “Anastasia taught me how I need to breathe through my workouts, my stretches, and all the sequences. And over time, I noticed that not only can I breathe better, but I also don't have dizziness when I'm leaning over. It's worked wonders.”
Here, Aaron and Anastasia share more about their experience working together in one-on-one Pilates sessions and how the method has helped Aaron look and feel his best.
Tell us about your first Pilates session together.
Anastasia: “When we meet for the first time, we always have our complimentary session, and we'll start with the basics. I offer some very basic classical exercises to see where we are at, and we also have a conversation about goals and injuries. Pilates is all about spinal articulation, which is super important in our everyday life; it's all about flexion, extension, and all types of rotations. Immediately during the very first session, we noticed that bending over — meaning forward flexion — was a challenge. Aaron couldn’t touch his feet or anything below the knees. After the first session, he was ready to go, and we decided that we would see each other twice a week.”
Aaron: “I wasn't nervous about the first meeting at all because fitness is a process. You don't walk into a place and expect results the same day. I know the first session just gives you an idea of how ‘bad’ things are. In my case, I already knew I had all this tightness and some shoulder issues at various points in my life from all the weight lifting and not properly stretching. A lot of those issues came out in the very beginning, so we were able to decide how to address them.”
How has your performance and daily functioning improved since you first started Pilates?
Aaron: “As time went on and we did our two sessions a week, stretching different muscle groups, I noticed that I had a little bit more mobility after each session. I noticed that the way my muscles looked changed — I was starting to get more cut. And even now, I'm leaner. I believe it’s because we're working more muscle groups than I would have worked by myself. One of the biggest draws to Pilates for me was that it was working muscle groups that I didn't even know that I could work. It showed me new exercises, I have a much better range of motion, and I don't feel as tight and locked up afterward. I also notice improved breathing and posture. It's been life-changing.”
Anastasia: “When I first met with Aaron, he immediately mentioned that he would love to get bigger and get more muscles; he was already super strong. But at some point, I noticed that even these basic Pilates exercises were quite challenging for him, even lifting his arms out without lifting his shoulders up toward the ceiling. It was already a challenge because of all the huge muscles that he has on his shoulders and neck, so we had to decide how to work the muscles and stretch them without losing his body composition.
“So we've worked hard on stretching his shoulders, finding all these teeny-tiny muscles in the neck and chest, and rotation and articulation. I always say that it's not about how it looks — we all want to curl deeper, lift our legs higher, and whatnot — but it's about how you feel. When I teach people Pilates, the goal is basically to prepare for our everyday life in the streets, and it’s super core-centric. The most important thing is to be prepared to go outside and be ready to bend over, twist, and find balance, which was a challenge for Aaron.”
Why did you opt for one-on-one Pilates sessions?
Aaron: “I knew if I was going to do Pilates, I wanted to do private sessions. I’ve been to some Equinox classes that are fast-paced, and I noticed I don’t get the type of time and attention that I do with Anastasia.
“But the reason why I like and appreciate our fitness sessions is because I don't have the expertise that Anastasia does when it comes to working out and understanding the body. I'm sitting at my desk all the time and doing computer stuff, and I’ve had experience in gym spaces, but I’ve never really understood how to work on my overall fitness.
“And that's the reason why I was pushing for private sessions with Anastasia. I felt confident in Anastasia's ability to help me diagnose my situation. I'm over here, like, ‘This is tight, this is tight, I have horrible coordination, and my balance is off. I don't know what to do.’ I firmly believe that this is the path that I need to take in order to fix all of these things. Honestly, the sessions that I have with Anastasia are the highlight of my day because I feel like it's an opportunity to better myself, to get my body more prepared for all the work that it has to do throughout the day.”
How are you progressing in the Pilates space?
Anastasia: “Working with Aaron is a great pleasure for me as an instructor because he is open to challenge, and I believe that's why the progress happened quite fast. When we realized that leaning or bending or twisting over is a problem for him, I immediately started adding it every single session, pushing him to go a bit deeper each time and breathing through it.
“We’re now working toward improving Aaron’s balance and mind-body connection. At this point, I would say the balance and coordinating all the body parts together so they can move simultaneously, or they can move differently, is the challenge here. That’s what prepares us for our everyday life and anything that can happen on the street or the subway. So that's the goal for me to build and to put more into our work.”
Aaron: “We started out with the basics, but Anastasia would sneak little advanced movements in there, and it gets me excited. I now feel like I'm getting up to the next level of Pilates, and she's showing me different things that are derived from ballet or are dance-like. It's allowing me to see my body in ways that I've never seen before, to be capable of things I've never been capable of before. I'm always eager to try those advanced moves. I see the amazing bodies of people who are gymnasts and the things that they're able to do, and the fact that I'm doing even a small percentage of what they might be doing is amazing.”
In general, Pilates classes are made up primarily of women. How did you feel walking into the studio?
Aaron: “When I first registered for Equinox and I started taking not just Pilates, but also some of the other studio classes, like Best Abs Ever and Best Butt Ever, it was nothing but women in there. I was the only guy in the room. I did feel a little subconscious at first. But I was there because I wanted to be healthy in my body. I wanted to feel good in my body, and I knew that I needed to take a holistic approach. And that means all aspects of my body need to be worked.
“I'm more concerned about: Can I walk by myself years from now? Am I going to have issues bending over, picking up things, or stretching? You might move one day and then throw your back out. I don't want those problems. I always saw Pilates as a part of a holistic approach so that when I do build muscle and have that physique, I still feel good in my body.”
Anastasia: “Not a lot of men will be coming to a Pilates studio, or maybe they will come to your studio saying, ‘Okay, I'm extremely sore. I want to stretch out. I know that you guys stretch here.’ I'm super happy to see that a strong man like Aaron is coming to the studio because he knows it's a great tool; it's not only for stretching but also strengthening the muscles. There is no gender in Pilates.”