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$("#fade").cycle();Pilates & Sports
‘Me…time’ Pilates
Pilates can help you to improve your Sports performance
Top athletes are using Pilates to gain explosive strength, increase their range of motion, build stamina and gain energy. With Pilates you will gain energy, reduce body fat and build longer more lean muscles, improve flexibility and build a stronger core.
Golf:
Pilates can develop optimal strength, flexibility, endurance and posture without building bulk or stressing your joints. Most of the key concepts of Pilates apply to Golf as well, for example balance and posture are essential to both. Pilates can really complement Golf and could improve your game.
Practicing Pilates alongside your Golf can help to sculpt your body without adding any bulk to your muscles. It can be specifically adapted to improve your Golf game by developing flexibility and strength in your body, specifically in the muscles which are vital for this sport.
Cricket:
Pilates provides key benefits for both batsmen and bowlers, which is why many top cricketers use it.
The aim of the batsman in cricket is to spend long periods in an unnatural stance that requires forward flexion of the spine. It is hardly surprising that many batsmen have succumbed to back injuries. Mike Atherton, the former England captain, swore by Pilates - as a way both to recover from injuries and to prevent future ones. Graham Thorpe, another England batsman, has also used Pilates to overcome serious back problems.
The aim of the bowler is either to propel the ball at extreme speed, or to use the angle of the body to create swing, or to employ the shoulders and wrist to impart spin. All bowling actions demand smoothness, economy, rhythm and balance. They also require accurate alignment to enable the body to withstand the force of landing on the front foot and rotating through the spine.
Pilates can be tailored to help a bowler become aware of what this alignment feels like. Practising the exercises before going out to bowl will enhance his body awareness and balance.
Tennis, Squash & Badminton:
A growing number of tennis players practice Pilates to improve their muscle control and flexibility, some of whom include Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Navratilova.
Racket sports demand both power and agility with high fitness levels as they involve a wide range of motion. The player not only needs to be quick to hit the ball/shuttle by extending the whole arm, but also needs to be quick to run to the net or baseline. A good player is required to have strong muscle endurance, flexibility and proper balance to last the match.
Racket sports like squash, tennis and badminton are by nature one-sided as players only use one side of the hand and arm to hit the ball/shuttle and they tend to limit the movement to only one side of the body.
Such movement creates an unbalanced body to the player that often results in over-use injuries. It is not surprising to hear that tennis, squash or badminton often injures the arms of the players. Elena Baltacha, a British tennis player who practices Pilates has said that Pilates helps with a lot of injury prevention and she would recommend it to anyone.
This is when you will need Pilates exercise to give you that extra edge on the court. Pilates aims to help the tennis, badminton and squash players to achieve the following:-
- Improved body balance for quick reaction to direction change
- Improved muscle control to prevent over-use injury
- Increased upper and lower body power for a powerful stroke and better endurance run
- Reduced back injury by increasing the flexibility of muscles
Skiing & Snowboarding:
The core muscles that help to maintain the dynamic, balanced posture are essential for safe and efficient skiing. 'Most skiers overtax their big muscles because they haven't learned how to use their core muscles,' says Caroline Lalive, the Olympic downhill racer. It is the knowledge of how to use the essential muscles which will improve your ski technique and performance.
Pilates challenges the deep abdominal muscles to support the core and creates a strong, flexible, resilient structure. This is essential to cope with the simple fact of having solid objects strapped to the feet that, for beginners, don't always go in the direction you want them to. Not to mention counteracting the twists and turns of the slope, and the ability to get up unscathed whenever you take a tumble.
For advanced skiers, activating the body's stabilising muscles helps maintain balance and poise at greater speed.
Cycling & Running:
Cycling may be great cardio-vascular exercise but the modern bike is a promoter of healthy posture. Indeed, quite the opposite, which is the main reason that many cyclists do Pilates and even more should.
Old-fashioned cycles were far better suited to a comfortable riding position, with the upper body held still and the spine lengthened. Modern mountain bikes require a more hunched posture with the head placed low over the front wheel. This causes excessive bending of the lumbar spine, a forward rotation of the hips and pelvis, and shortening of the back of the neck due to the need to look forward and see where you're going. Many committed cyclists also suffer from a shortening of the hamstrings.
Runners do Pilates most of all because it builds long, strong muscles, improves their flexibility and lessens their risk of injury. The way that Pilates opens up the vertebrae in the lower back, in particular, helps prevent the sort of back injuries which can result from the constant impact involved in running.
Just as runners can use Pilates to enhance their body awareness and condition efficient patterns of movement, so many cyclists use it to restore postural alignment, shift the spine back into position, open up the chest, ease and prevent back pain and relieve the tension caused by sitting for long periods in a mechanically unsound position.
Rugby & Football:
A growing number of top footballers and rugby players do Pilates as a way of improving co-ordination, mobility and flexibility, as well as for both recovering from injuries and preventing them in the first place. The Welsh Rugby Union is among the high-profile advocates of Pilates.
All rugby players and footballers will be aware of the crucial importance of stretching, suppleness and flexibility - the very things that Pilates does best. Indeed, Pilates exercises should be used more widely than they are in, for example, pre-match warm-up routines.
Recent years have brought a growing willingness to look outside the sport for ideas to improve player’s ability and overall success, in particular to address the injury toll associated with over-training of certain muscle groups.
With both football and rugby demanding rapid directional changes often at near-maximum pace, an inflexible physique is unhelpful. Rugby forwards must also possess the ability to deliver controlled power from the unbalanced body positions adopted in the scrum. A Pilates programme can greatly improve general mobility and enhance core strength while easing the stress placed on the neck and spine during intense scrummaging.
Hamstring tears are also common in both sports and a properly tailored programme of Pilates, focusing on the stabiliser muscles of the pelvis (the buttocks and groin muscles), will help prevent them. This is just one example of the many ways in which Pilates can benefit you during your sport.
Horse-Riding:
A growing number of horse riders use Pilates to build core strength, suppleness, flexibility, grace and balance, as well as to improve general body awareness.
The perfect riding position is calls for the rider sit in such a way that each part of the body rests on the part directly below it, enabling the weight of the rider to reach the horse in a straight line, meaning balance and body awareness are essential.
A general Pilates programme will develop the necessary postural alignment and balance, while specific exercises can enhance the ability to move one body part - say, the legs - without the need for major readjustment of the hips and torso.
Since a rider must cope with a horse moving both vertically and horizontally, core strength is vital, as is resilience within the body to maintain the 'classical seat', all of which Pilates can help you perfect.
Pilates exercises are performed at a deliberate pace, employing appropriate breathing patterns and attention to detail. This approach translates well to the pool, where many swimmers need to 'slow focus on breathing, body orientation and balance.
Particularly important is the need to release the neck in order to lengthen the spine, eliminating the muscular tension that affects the whole body when the head is pulled back. The head position adopted by most poor swimmers, particularly when performing the breast-stroke, would be impossible to hold for long periods out of the water. The challenge, therefore, is to 'remember to remember' the superior postural alignment and sense of lightness gained through Pilates and apply it in the pool.
Swimmers who also do Pilates, however, find it easier to focus on breathing, grace, flow and maintaining a steady pace, and therefore improving their ability to perform better.