Every once in a while someone will tell me that the reason I can do a particular pilates exercise is because I’m young. I think that’s a bit of a copout because usually the person who says it is also capable of doing the exercise or if they can’t do it yet but would be able to do it with practice.

I also don’t think age really comes into play when you’re talking about pilates. If someone said to me, “You were only able to run a marathon when you were twenty-five without training because you were young,” I would whole heartedly agree with them, but pilates is different. It has this brilliant way of making you see every exercise that challenges you and then gives you ways you can improve.

But we each improve in our own body and at our own rate. And life always throws new things as us, so as soon as we conquer one exercise we may find another more difficult. Or we may take two steps forward and one back on our way to getting better at a particular exercise.

Just because I’m younger doesn’t make pilates easy for me. In fact, I would argue that the older I get the more in tune with my body I get, which makes pilates easier. Here are just some of the things about my body that makes pilates a challenge:

• Tight hip flexors
• Imbalance between hamstrings and quads
• Right glute weaker than left
• Pulled right oblique occasionally acts up

And here are some of my strengths

• I’m pretty aware of my body
• I have good strength and control of my abs
• Strong shoulders
• Good mobility in my feet and ankles

So please don’t limit yourself by your age. I don’t think it limits you, and one of the reasons I do pilates is to keep from letting my age ever rule me. And remember, Joe Pilates was doing pilates into his eighties.