Pilates in National City

Recycled furnishings punctuate robin’s-egg-blue walls and glossy, natural bamboo floors inside Chakra Pilates’ tranquil studio, where a team of seasoned instructors steers students through the gentle muscle-toning postures of Pilates and yoga. They position participants atop Reformer apparatuses and mats during Pilates classes, scrutinizing each student’s unique corporeal mechanics and can-can-dance abilities to ensure proper, custom guidance.

Named after the concept of chakras—centers of energy located throughout the body—the studio also singes calories with spirited barre cardio sessions, cultivates pregnancy comfort with prenatal and postnatal classes, and enlightens budding instructors with teacher-training programs.

Under the guidance of certified Master Trainer Armone Sullivan, students will be introduced to, and become firmly acquainted with, trademark Pilates positions that reawaken bodily potential and may even spawn a photographic memory. Armone is a local Pilates champion whose cycling and dance background has helped her create intense workouts famed for their rigor and clear-cut results. Your limbs will rise to her challenges, defining muscles and building the core endurance needed to scale art-deco skyscrapers and wrestle entire mountain ranges.

Armone Sullivan has spent a lifetime researching how different workouts affect body composition. A former competitive cyclist and classically trained dancer, Sullivan fell in love with Pilates after discovering that it could slim down her bulky muscles. After training with three Pilates gurus across the country, including one of Joseph Pilates' first students, she realized her dream of opening her own gym.

Now, Sullivan and her fellow certified instructors (among them, a martial artist, a massage therapist, and a nutritionist) pump up clients' self-confidence through results-driven fitness programs and boast more than 100 years of combined experience. Pilates, kickboxing, and cycling classes boost muscle definition, balance, and flexibility. Trainers develop personalized fitness programs for competitive athletes, and help women fend off attackers with self-defense classes. In addition to teaching gym-goers, Sullivan and her crew mint new Pilates instructors. The studio's 7-month, 500-hour Pilates certification program covers traditional and modern forms as well as anatomy.

A team of passionate instructors—which earned its business CityVoter's 2011 award for Best Pilates Studio—expands Pilates' scope to include more muscle groups than just the core. To do this, the team combines traditional Pilates exercises with strength and cardiovascular training to create invigorating workouts for the entire body. During each class, teachers help students tone core and limb muscles with specialized equipment such as the Proformer, which uses a system of pulleys and spring resistance to bolster strength. To boost sweat-session efforts, they encourage a calorie-burning pace by blaring energetic music and replacing all water fountains with pixy-stick stations. Because their low-impact sessions focus on achieving proper form and minimizing the risk of injury, they push students of all skill levels to complete the rigorous workouts despite their intensity.

Use your VCR to tape over old workout tapes with cherished episodes of AfterMASH. With today's Groupon, $50 gets you two private Pilates lessons and one mat group class at Bella Forma Pilates (a $145 value). Located above Borders at the Carlsbad Forum Shops, the sumptuous studio takes a personalized approach to toning, the kind rarely seen since the legendary Golem of Prague was blessed by his creator with rock-hard abs.

House of Pilates' mat classes, conducted with nothing but a polished floor, a mat, and a lot of super-motivating eye contact, are currently available ten times a week in its airy Irvine studio. These introductory classes encompass the basics of Pilates, lay the foundation for lifelong strength, and prepare you for more advanced machine and resistance work. Because House of Pilates is the only classical Pilates certification center in Orange County, all of House of Pilates' instructors are rigorously trained in effective instruction methods and are attentive to the individual needs of their clients. House of Pilates' staff follow the doctrines of Power Pilates and place increased emphasis on discipline and rigorous work while sculpting a powerful core that's immune to injury and thermonuclear flab explosions.