The Benefits Of Pilates For Sports
The fitness technique of Pilates is playing an increasing role in elite sports, including team sports like rugby or football, individual sports like tennis or athletics or endurance events such as marathon running or rowing.
More teams and athletes are implementing this fitness system into their training plans.This growing number of famous sports personalities who use Pilates to improve their game include Real Madrid winger, Gareth Bale, who has been using this fitness regime to improve his effectiveness and flexibility on the field since his days playing for Tottenham Hotspur. Many know that leading golfing legend Tiger Woods has made use of Pilates, which makes perfect sense with core strength a necessary factor in this particular sport. Natalie Coughlin, a competition swimmer and 12-time Olympic medallist, has said this about Pilates: “Pilates is an awesome cross-training exercise for any sport because it focuses on functional movement.”
The incorporation of Pilates into any training or exercise system has proven to benefit sports people at all levels, with three obvious main advantages.
1. Dropping the rate and seriousness of injuries
Posture is an important element when it comes to steering clear of numerous common injuries. One of the leading causes of this is an unstable pelvis, which leads to lower back pain. This cause is, more often than not, the common result of tight hip flexors. This shortens the lower back muscles and stretches the hamstrings, making both prone to injuries. Pilates is perfect for freeing the hip flexors, bringing them into a more neutral positional and lessening the strain of the back and hamstrings.
More advanced forms of Pilates go further by toughening the muscles around the hips with more functional exercises. These help the muscles to operate with greater efficiency and effectiveness with movements that simulate most of the actions common to various types of sports, such as squats, lunges and lateral movements.
2. Increasing the body controls
Control is one of the five principles of Pilates. Each exercise challenges the body in various ways, with the common element in all being control. Pilates provides more feedback than other traditional exercise routines in that it builds awareness of the location of the limbs in relation to the rest of the body and how to correct your position while moving. Pilates builds awareness of which muscles are working and how to access the necessary muscles to achieve movement and stability.
3. Greater power output
A key benefit of all Pilates programmes is increased core stability, which helps to channel and maximise power with greater efficiency and effectiveness. Pilates develops extra stability through the hips and core, allowing for the generation of power from uncommon positions. Plenty of exercises within this programme are unilateral, helping to generate strength and control in unstable positions.
While Pilates is highly beneficial for elite sports, it is additionally beneficial for people of all occupations to benefit from regular practice. Our demanding schedules tend to be conducive to poor posture, tight muscles and muscular imbalances. Pilates can help rectify these imbalances, help us avoid injury and achieve our best performance possible.