PILATES: For Sport

Many famous and successful sports teams and individuals incorporate Pilates and Pilates based exercises into their training schedule.  These include the New Zealand All Blacks, the Welsh and the English Rugby Union Teams along with sports personalities such as Mike Atherton and Graham Thorpe of English cricket, Tiger Woods and Annika Sorrenstam (Golf), Nick Southwell (skiing) and Johno Verity (snowboarding) who have reportedly used Pilates to improve their performance and gain a sporting edge.

So how can Pilates help you?  Much is made of core stability and most people endeavour to incorporate some core work into their training or fitness programmes.

However, poor technique can utilise the larger muscles resulting in poorly trained abdominals and early fatigue through overuse of the more superficial movement muscles.

Pilates exercises, correctly taught, will isolate the deep abdominal muscles, training these to stabilise the pelvis and spine and strengthen the core, as they are designed to, freeing other muscles to focus on their own specific task.  In order to obtain this correct muscle recruitment you need to breathe correctly using the lower lodes of the lungs, which will also improve focus and concentration, as well as improve body awareness and posture.  These benefits are all valuable contributors to sporting success.

Many sports such as cricket, golf and tennis, are predominantly one sided which can lead to muscular imbalance, which if left unchecked can become skeletal imbalances not only affecting your game but also impacting on everyday movement quality.  Pilates’ exercises performed well and regularly will assist in rebalancing your body by strengthening the weaker muscles and stretching the tight muscles.  Pilates exercises can also increase joint mobility by stretching and lengthening muscles and thereby creating space in the joints of the hips, shoulders and vertebra of the spine and allowing greater flexibility and also reducing the risk of injury by allowing the body to more freely, smoothly and with greater control.

It has probably taken many years for these postural changes to take effect, and they cannot be expected to change overnight, however, the benefits of Pilates can be felt within a few weeks.

“In 10 sessions you will feel the difference, in 20 you will see the difference, and in 30 you’ll have a whole new body.”
Joseph H Pilates

Advantages of regular Pilates exercises include;

• Reduced risk of injury
• Better and quicker recovery after injury or surgery
• Improved flexibility, posture and movement quality
• Increased core stability & strength
• Increase CO2 intake through better breathing
• Enhanced endurance