Pilates and yoga have similar practices. Yoga and Pilates are identical in focus on the mind and body. However, yoga brings more element, which is the spirit. Exploring spirituality is a big part of yoga practice, primarily through meditation.

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As for pilates, it focuses on flexibility, strength and endurance of the body. By maintaining consistency, it will help the body achieve a greater sense of enlightenment.

However, which one is right for you? Only you can answer that. To help you choose, we break down the differences between yoga and pilates.

Better Mental Health

If you are suffering from depression or anxiety, yoga might be the most effective exercise to combat them.

When comparing the differences between pilates and yoga, the breathing techniques differ. Yoga focuses on breathing techniques to achieve relaxation.

You continuously concentrate on breathing methods and maintaining proper breathing. By keeping breathing techniques, each part of the body will receive enough oxygen to help relax the tight muscles.

Pilates uses more effective stretching techniques so that the muscles will work effectively. It also focuses on breathing and will help in achieving maximum flexibility. This, in turn, will rid your body of those knots in the body and free up the mind.

Toning Your Body

Although yoga and Pilates focus on the muscle groups, pilates tends to have a greater focus on muscle toning.

Pilates can help to lose weight as it uses different machines and apparatus which adds cardio and fitness elements to the exercise. This helps to tone your body, while there are no machines in yoga practice, so it might not help as much.

Physical Rehabilitation

Pilates helps in the re-training of injured muscles, such as individuals with physical injuries, Pilates has been an excellent method of reducing physical pain and recovering from injury.

Yoga, on the other hand, has been often used as more of a part of mental and emotional rehabilitation. However, this all differs on the classes, depending on the focus, teacher, or yoga studio, while Pilates is not quite as diverse.

Flexibility

Both Yoga and Pilates help improve the flexibility of the body. By practising it consistently, it will increase the flexibility of the joints.

For Stronger and Supportive Back Muscles

Yoga and pilates will assist in supporting the back muscles which results in stronger and more supportive back muscles. However, yoga poses can also make problems worse.

Advice will be given to people with back problems on whether the exercises will improve the issues. So you have always to tell the instructors what your goal is so that they can help you.

So which one is the best for you? The easiest way to decide whether pilates or yoga is best for you is to try both classes for yourself to see which one suits your needs and abilities. Both pilates and yoga are a delightful way to strengthen your muscles, get your body in better shape, relieve stress and gain more flexibility.

If you’re still not sure, you can talk to your healthcare provider at Okadoc for a better understanding and recommendation.