where was pilates invented

Pilates was invented by Joseph Pilates, who was originally from Mönchengladbach, Germany. He developed the system during World War I while he was interned at the Knockaloe Internment Camp on the Isle of Man. It was during this time that he began working on exercises to strengthen the mind and body, using hospital beds and springs to create early versions of his exercise apparatus. After the war, Pilates refined his method further before eventually bringing it to America in the late 1920s, where he opened his first studio in New York City. Thus, Pilates was invented in the Isle of Man during WWI by Joseph Pilates, a German national.