An Overview of Hot Pilates vs. Mat Pilates

An Overview of Hot Pilates vs. Mat Pilates

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Mat Pilates has long been a great, low-impact way to build core strength, improving flexibility, and help with overall body awareness. Hot Pilates is another type of Pilates that takes it up a notch, literally! The heat in these classes takes your fitness to a new level, and is a high energy version of Mat Pilates. While both Hot Pilates and Mat Pilates share the same foundation of mindful movement and controlled exercises, they differ in intensity and benefits. Here’s an overview to learn the differences between these two popular classes.

What is Pilates?

Originally called “Contrology,” Pilates is a low-impact exercise that was developed by German physical trainer Joseph Pilates in the early 20th century. The practice centers around a series of exercises that are about 50 repetitions each, repeated 3-5 times and are intended to focus on stability, muscle endurance, and the mind-body connection to target your deep core muscles—the powerhouse of your body. Each Pilates exercise flows from the five essentials: breathing, cervical alignment, rib and scapular stabilization, pelvic mobility, and utilizing the transverse abdominis. The key is core stabilization to stay balanced, keeping your movements controlled.

Benefits of Pilates

  • Core Strength ⎯ Pilates is known for building a strong core. A strong core improves posture, reduces back pain, and helps with overall fitness performance, especially if you’re a runner. The movements you do in Pilates give you the endurance to run longer, harder, and over varied terrain.
  • Increased Flexibility ⎯ The slow, controlled movements lengthen your muscles and increase your range of motion without over-stretching. Over time, you’ll see that you can stretch farther than you used to. 
  • Improved Posture ⎯ By strengthening your core and focusing on lengthening your arms and legs, Pilates helps improve your posture because you’re more apt to pay attention to how you move and breathe through other workouts.
  • Low-Impact Workout ⎯ Pilates is gentle on the joints, so it’s a great exercise for people of all fitness levels.
  • Mind-Body Connection ⎯ Focusing on your breathing while concentrating on the movements helps calm the nervous system and reduce stress. As you move through each exercise you feel your body getting stronger and able to do more reps.

What is Hot Pilates?

Hot Pilates is when you do Pilates in a heated room. The temperature is typically set between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit with around 40% humidity. Hot Pilates incorporates many principles of Pilates, but the heat intensifies the exercise a lot. The heated version is intended to increase flexibility by warming and loosening muscles, while the humidity helps with cooling the body through sweat. These classes are usually done with a mat and blend traditional Pilates with High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) exercises to make the workout pretty intense.

Benefits of Hot Pilates

  • Increases Flexibility ⎯ The heat warms your muscles so you can go deeper into stretches versus non-heated Pilates.
  • Higher Calorie Burn ⎯ The combination of heat and HIIT exercises elevates your heart rate for a greater cardiovascular challenge and calorie burn.
  • Detoxification ⎯ The heat in a hot Pilates class will make you sweat, a lot! Sweat does more than cool you down, it also helps you flush out toxins.
  • Boosted Circulation ⎯ Heat helps to dilate blood vessels, delivering more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, which improves blood flow and circulation.

What is Best For You? Mat Pilates or Hot?

Regardless of which type of Pilates you do, the focus is the same: control, concentration, breath, centering, precision and flow. These six principles work together to create long, lean muscles, and improve cardiovascular health.

Mat Pilates is best if:

  • You’re new to Pilates and want to master the fundamentals.
  • Your goal is to increase core strength and posture.
  • You’re recovering from an injury or need a low-impact workout that is gentle on joints.
  • You prefer a more meditative exercise.

Hot Pilates is best if:

  • You want to combine Mat Pilates with an intense cardio workout.
  • Your main goals are to burn calories and increase your cardiovascular endurance.
  • You like the heat.
  • You’re looking to work on your flexibility even more.

Both Hot Pilates and Mat Pilates offer incredible benefits for body and mind, and if you’re not ready to go to a Pilates class, you can do exercises on your own with these moves that help improve your heart health. After any Pilates workout, be sure to make it a habit to stretch out your core because this relaxes muscles and relieves tension. 

Hopefully this post gave you a good overview of both so you can decide what type of Pilates is best for you!

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