Joseph H. Pilates was born in Mönchengladbach, a small town near Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1880. As a child he was small, frail, and frequently ill.   His father was a prizewinning gymnast and his mother a naturopath. A family physician gave him an anatomy book and as he put it "I learned every page, every part of the body; I would move each part as I memorized it. As a child, I would lie in the woods for hours, hiding and watching the animals move, how the mother taught the young." he said. He studied both Eastern and Western forms of exercise including yoga, Zen, and ancient Greek and Roman regimens. By the time he was 14 he had worked so hard he had developed his body to the point that he was modeling for anatomy charts.

Growing up in Germany, he achieved some success as a boxer and a gymnast in addition to being a skilled skier and diver. By 1914 Pilates began to tour England as a boxer and performer. In 1914 after WWI broke out he was interned along with other German nationals in Lancaster. There he taught wrestling and self-defense.  It was here that he began devising his system of original exercises that later became "Contrology". He was transferred to another camp on The Isle of Man where he became something of a nurse and worked with many internees who suffered from suffering from debilitating injuries and disease.  It is here that he began designing and building equipment to rehabilitate them.  He said, "I invented all these machines. Why use my strength? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. “

After the war Joseph returned to Germany and began training the Hamburg Military Police in self- defense and physical training.

In 1925 Joseph Pilates decided leave Germany to come to the U.S. Upon his arrival in New York City he opened a gym in a building that housed several dance studios.  It was this proximity that made "Contrology" such an intrinsic part of many dancers' training.  George Balanchine, the famous choreographer, studied with Joseph and sent many of his dancers to Pilates for strengthening and "balancing" as well as rehabilitation, as did another famous dancer/choreographer, Martha Graham.

Pilates defined physical fitness as, "the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind fully capable of naturally, easily and satisfactorily performing our many and varied daily tasks with spontaneously zest and pleasure". Pilates believed in "natural movements" with the emphasis on doing and being. He has stated, " Everything should be smooth, like a cat. The exercises are done lying, sitting, kneeling, etc., to avoid excess strain on the heart and lungs."

In January 1966 there was a fire in the building that housed his Pilates studio. According to accounts Pilates fell through floorboards damaged by the fire.  He hung by his hands from a beam until rescued by the firefighters. In October of 1967, at the age of 87, Joseph H. Pilates