Pilates or Yoga

You know, I've done both and I have a hard time describing the difference between the two. I'd say that both involve core muscles, but pilates seems to be more focused on those muscles. The yoga classes I've taken seem to involve more flow between movements and tend to focus more on centering and relaxation.

Regardless of the difference, I wanted to recommend the 10 Minute Solutions workouts. I bought several of these dvds from Amazon when my daughter was born, and they're great. They have quite a variety of workouts from kickboxing to fitness ball to pilates. These are great for sneaking in 10 minutes whenever you have the time, and it's nice when you do have 20-30 minutes to mix it up a little and do a variety of 10 min workouts. I do really like the pilates video, so this is one that I'd highly recommend if you're looking for short pilates workouts.

I take a class called "fusion" which is both yoga and pilates. To me the main difference is yoga is more strength and stretching whereas pilates focuses a lot on core (abdominal/back) strength. Both are excellent forms of exercise and both are important. I would try to find a DVD that maybe has some of both? If not, it depends upon what is more important. If you want to burn, I would go with pilates. If you want to gain balance and flexibility, I would go with yoga. I hope this helps. Feel free to drop me a line if you have another question.

Try Rodney Yee's "15 minute yoga." It has four segments on the DVD and it's terrific for those little blocks of time while the kid's asleep, or at the start of your day.

If you subscribe to comcast, you can go to the on demand under lifestyles and select exercise tv. They have all types of exercise programs (pilates, yoga, strength training, taebo, strip tease, chair exercises - just about anything you would like to do) ranging in time from 5 minutes to an hour. THe only thing is that once you begin to like one a lot they switch it out. They are always updating the site, so enjoy what you can.

First, go to www.amazon.com you can read all the reviews.
Second, most public libraries have workout DVD's so you can try and see if you really like it.
Third, walk..walk..walk Get a good pair of shoes and walk around your neighborhood. It gets your muscles warmed up and burns off calories. And an ipod or mp3 player is the best to keep you company. Down load music or books

From my experience, yoga is a lot more calm and relaxing....it helps with flexibility, stress, strength, etc....and pilates is a lot more of quick, short movements with breathing, etc and it is very strenuous - but also helps with stress, of course! I would maybe order two cheap videos of each from Amazon and try them both out! Then you can see which ones feels best for you and order some more. Also - as for recommendations - I actually have a beginner's yoga video (very old) and I love it...try something easy at first and work your way up to more advanced....you will still get a work out! And I also have the Paula Abdul aerobics video - she works in a lot of dance moves to keep it fun - and it's a bit challenging, so I do that for cardio. :)

I prefer yoga but I've been doing it for 8 years and found pilates difficult because I was used to the yoga positioning and it's not exactly the same since pilaties requires you to move in postures similar to yoga poses but the variations are such that if you have your muscles and a certain place (you become very aware of them in yoga) the movement isn't really possible. I like the yoga zone dvd's and Sarah Ivanhoe. They are modern, good for a beginner to intermediate, and in 20 min segments.