A few years ago, I started competing in Spartan Races.
At 6’6″ and weighing a lean 240 pounds, my body type doesn’t necessarily give me an advantage in road races, but it certainly helps in strength-endurance events like Spartan races. One example is the Atlas Carry. Competitors pick up a 100-pound concrete or metal ball, carry it around a marker approximately 20 yards away, and then bring it back. Being tall and strong definitely helps. But having great functional strength reigns supreme and that’s where Pilates comes in.
Let me go back to beginning and share how I got involved with Pilates from a very young age.
I honestly don’t remember a time in my life when Pilates wasn’t part of it. When I was three years old, my mom, Patrea Aeschliman fell in love with Pilates. She bought a Reformer and started training clients out of our garage and soon opened studios in North Carolina, where she developed what would become the 15 to Fit Method™ Pilates.
As her son, I had a front-row seat to all of it. We always had a Reformer in the house. There are photos of me climbing on Pilates equipment when I was six years old. Not that I actually did Pilates. When I was young, I viewed Pilates as boring, not cool, and honestly, just straight up lame.
As a kid, I had two friends who were brothers and we ran the neighborhood like a pack of wolves. We were constantly playing football, tag, or swimming. Competition was always a part of my life, seeing who was a faster swimmer or sprinter, and often, who could get Seth to the ground faster. We used to sneak out to a frozen creek and see who was brave enough to walk out on the thin ice.
When I was 11, I hit a massive growth spurt that caused me to grow 9 inches in just three years. I entered middle school at 5’7″ and around 120 pounds. By the time I entered high school, I was over 6’4″ and 200 pounds.
Around the beginning of that growth spurt, one of my mom’s colleagues, who worked with professional race car drivers, assessed me. He noticed my calves were becoming extremely tight and predicted that I would soon develop hip and back pain.
Unfortunately, he was right. Within a few months, I started experiencing both. Following his recommendation—and the advice of several physical therapists—I began doing Pilates with my mom.
I hated it. At 11 years old, I thought Pilates was for old people. I couldn’t understand why exercises that adults could do easily, felt so difficult for me. There were some exercises that felt easy, but in reality, I was doing them wrong…or not listening. Even though I participated reluctantly, Pilates helped me. Within about ten sessions, my hip and back pain completely resolved.
I drifted away from Pilates but eventually came back to it. By then, my mom had trained several instructors, and I started taking classes and private sessions with one of my favorites, Kimmy. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that my enthusiasm for Pilates increased dramatically once I started training with Kimmy. She was 27 years old, a former collegiate soccer player, incredibly knowledgeable, and—let’s be honest—very attractive.
When I trained with my mom, I said things like, “This exercise is dumb, that doesn’t make sense, why would I do that?” When I took a lesson with Kimmy, I’d come home quoting the things my mom taught Kimmy.
Those sessions with Kimmy changed my perspective. I began training in the 15 to Fit Method™ twice a week through private sessions and classes. I worked on the Reformer, Chair and Cadillac. Sometimes I’d even do Mat Pilates as a warm-up before basketball games or in between games at tournaments. The more consistently I trained, the better I felt.
Pilates became the foundation of my athletic development.
Building an Athlete
As I continued growing, basketball became my primary sport. At the same time, I started weightlifting and pursuing athletic performance more seriously. What I didn’t realize then was how much of an advantage Pilates had already given me. Many of my peers were getting stronger in the weight room, but they lacked body awareness, mobility, stability, and movement efficiency. Pilates had already taught me how to control my body.
When I started lifting weights, I wasn’t building strength on top of dysfunction. I was building strength on top of a solid foundation. Pilates gave me mobility, coordination, flexibility, balance, and injury prevention. It strengthened the smaller stabilizing muscles that traditional strength training often overlooks. As a result, I was able to train harder, recover faster, and stay healthier than many athletes around me.
I lifted weights consistently and with good technique starting at age 14. When it came to weight training, I had the advantage of utilizing my mom’s programs. They were written based on the research of Exercise Physiologists with PhDs from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (N.S.C.A.)
My mom always pushed me to be better. I thought I was doing “plyometrics” by sprinting up the hills behind my high school. During COVID, my mom watched one of these workouts. Her assessment? “Seth is sprinting up these tiny hills, then walking back to his phone at the bottom and taking a break. This kid needs to learn about intensity.”
My mom called a friend and asked whether her husband Dan could work with me. Dan Jansen just happened to be a 1994 Olympic Gold Medalist in Speed Skating and a Winter Olympic icon. COVID had canceled many of the conferences and events he normally presented at, and he suddenly had extra time. As a favor, he agreed to train me once and see how it went.
The first workout was at Davidson College at 7:00 a.m. (It’s also important to mention that the entire Davidson College Women’s Track team was outside preparing for practice). After a quick dynamic and plyometric warm-up, Dan had me sprinting stadium steps, jumping stadium steps, and then hopping up the stairs on one leg while skipping every other step. He timed everything. Even the breaks.
About 30 minutes into the workout, during one of the two-minute breaks, I realized something I had never realized before. I was horrendously out of shape, and I had eaten too much for breakfast. I told Dan “I’m good. I just need another 90 seconds.” Then I proceeded to throw up in front of approximately 30 college girls. Afterward, I told Dan I was ready to keep going. Thankfully, he responded “That’s enough for today, I think we shocked your system.” I was ready to grab my stuff and leave but then Dan said, “We need to take a cool down lap.” So, we took a cool down lap, and lightly jogged past the track girls who had just watched me spill my guts. I knew I would always remember that embarrassing moment.
That day, I learned three things:
1. There’s intensity—and then there’s Olympic Champion intensity.
2. Sometimes people can be older than you and still be dramatically fitter than you.
3. Never eat eggs and a peanut butter bagel before one of Dan’s workouts.
At the end of the cool-down lap, I asked: “Are we done? When’s the next workout?” Dan smiled and said: “I’ll see you back here in two days, at 6:00 a.m.” I passed the test.
For the next year and a half, Dan trained me two to three times per week in speed, agility, and plyometric training. He did it entirely as a favor and never accepted payment. He taught me the importance of meditation and the mental edge of the athletic game. I have a strong admiration for him and am forever grateful for his friendship, mentorship, and belief in me. I also think he thoroughly enjoyed kicking my ass.
Since then, I’ve played collegiate basketball and maintained an active lifestyle throughout my college years. Pilates remained a consistent part of my training the entire time. Here’s a workout I’m doing with my mom.
What continues to impress me about Pilates is that it’s challenging without constantly beating up your body. The alignment, mobility, body awareness, and pain relief it provides are unlike anything else I’ve experienced. Pilates has allowed me to stay active as an adult while balancing a demanding lifestyle. I play basketball, lift weights, run, compete in Spartan races, and sometimes work 12 to 14 hours a day in my landscaping business.
As for Pilates itself, this isn’t 2012 anymore. The stigma is gone. As someone who has done Pilates for most of my life, it’s interesting to see how popular it has become. Pilates may be trending now, but for me, it’s always been a staple of my training regimen. The truth is simple: My body feels better when I do Pilates consistently. You can’t beat the shit out of yourself in every workout and expect to feel good. Bringing balance to the intensity is key.
If you’ve never committed to high-quality Pilates twice a week for a month, it’s hard to understand just how effective it can be. But once you do, you’ll feel the difference. You’ll move better. You’ll recover better. You’ll experience less pain. And most importantly, you’ll be able to enjoy the activities you love for many years to come.
Seth Aeschliman
Seth Aeschliman has a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from UNC Charlotte where he also played collegiate basketball. Seth has been practicing Pilates for more than half his life, starting at just 11 years old. Pilates laid the groundwork for him to excel in basketball, baseball, and running, with optimized strength and speed and minimal pain. When Seth isn’t focused on building his landscaping and trade company he enjoys being out on Lake Norman wake surfing and tubing. He recently started his Pilates education with Balanced Body to follow in his mother’s footsteps.
