Which concept involves gradually increasing exercise intensity in Pilates?

Progressive overload is a key concept in exercise science that refers to the gradual increase in intensity, frequency, or duration of physical activity in order to continuously challenge the body and stimulate improvements in strength, endurance, and overall fitness. In the context of Pilates, this means incrementally increasing resistance, complexity, or repetition of exercises to promote muscle adaptation and growth.

When applied in Pilates, progressive overload can involve increasing the resistance on the reformer, adding more repetitions of a particular movement, or advancing to more challenging variations of exercises. This principle ensures that the body does not plateau and continues to develop.

The other concepts listed do not align with the idea of systematically increasing challenge over time. Dynamic stretching involves moving parts of the body to gradually increase range of motion, while static resistance refers to maintaining a position against resistance without movement. Inconsistent training lacks a structured approach to progressively increase difficulty, which can hold back physical progress.