How To Choose A Pilates Mat For Beginners

Transcript

right let's talk about mats let's talk about pilates mats now i'll be honest with you i was using a yoga mat for quite a few years uh before i changed over and got a pilates mat there is a difference between yoga mats and pilates mats the main difference is the thickness so in pilates we like a nice thick mat like this the reason being is that we do a lot of lying down good stuff hey and a lot of lying on our side as well so we need to be really nice and comfortable and in yoga you don't tend to do so much of that and it's much more important to have lots of grip because you're doing lots of kind of standing work you often see yoga mats described as super grippy um so they're the kind of main differences between a yoga mat and a pilates mat now when i did finally decide to invest in a new mat i bought this one it's quite expensive it's about 60 quid but my god it's lovely um it's by brand called air x um it's a very nice snazzy color it's got that nice level of thickness so you want something about what eight mil one centimeter something like that the other thing i really like about this is it's nice and drapey so lots of pilates mats when you buy them you'll discover have a strap around them to keep them together they kind of bounce open they're quite bored whereas this is nice and drapey it's nice and ribbed right um so it just stores really well particularly if you haven't got much space which um i am one of those people i don't have a lot of space so look bottom line is if you've got a yoga mat yes you can do pilates with it but in the longer term treat yourself get yourself a proper pilates mat oh the other thing is when you're doing things like a double leg hug so you're lying on your back and you've got both knees hugging into your chest and we do a little rock side to side you will feel a lovely little massage on your lower spine when you've got a pilates mat which you don't really get when you're using a yoga mat so look invest if you can