It may be that you have some favourite exercises you want to keep doing in addition to the Pilates Method. If so, remember that you have been learning not just a specific group of exercises, but a whole new way of thinking about movement. You will get so much more if you apply the Pilates principles to it.
Before you do an exercise, take a moment to analyse it. What are you really doing? Should you have your spine to the mat? Or sit up out of your hips? Be mindful not to let your your stomach bulge or your shoulders hunch up. You want to concentrate, to maintain full body control, to establish and maintain a firm centre, to move smoothly and with precision, and to co-ordinate your breathing with the movement.
Applying Pilates principals, everyone notes, an improvement in control, co-ordination and endurance, and some people find that their reaction time improves.
The value of the Method's general balancing and conditioning effect is easiest to see in sports which call for a symmetrical use of the body. But in a sense it is even more important for sports, which emphasise one side of the body over another.
So how is Pilates different to what you already know, compared to general physical fitness. Pilates gives you the flexibility gained from yoga, the muscle work out of weight training without the bulk, a strong, toned body with a flatter stomach and longer leaner muscles. It will improve your posture and relieve many aches and pains and decompress your spine, so you may even regain lost height.
The human body is ill prepared to sudden physical stress, So first things first, lets start at the beginning, before engaging in any strenuous activity. We all know the importance of warming up. Warming up of course hasn't got to do with temperature but a matter of gradually getting the muscles into action, loosening and stretching them, building a pulse rate and beginning to breath deeper. Preparing the body for the demands that are going to be placed on it will prevent injuries and strain.
Instead of being a mindless exercise, Pilates is one in which you have to engage your mind, by physically and mentally engaging the body in exercise, the body responds by working as a more efficient organism. Joseph H Pilates said, "Ideally our muscles should obey our will. Reasonably, our will should not be dominated by the reflex actions of our muscles....Contrology begins with mind-will over muscles".