Have You Considered Pilates for Strength and Conditioning?

When it comes to building strength and conditioning one’s body, Pilates is not naturally the first exercise system that comes to mind for most people. However, Pilates is, in fact, highly complementary to the traditional gym exercises when it comes to building all layers of your muscles. Here are a few ways you can expect our private Pilates sessions to serve your fitness and strength goals:

Benefits of Pilates for Strength and Conditioning

Builds Intrinsic Muscle Strength and Endurance

Whilst strength and conditioning exercises in the gym place heavy focus on the superficial muscles and torque producers, Pilates focuses on strengthening the intrinsic musculature – or deep muscles. These muscles are closest to the bone, and are key in supporting the structure of the joints and spine.

Indeed, a 2010 study demonstrated that in active middle-aged men and women, exposure to Pilates exercise for 12 weeks, for two 60-minute sessions per week, was enough to promote statistically significant increases in abdominal endurance, hamstring flexibility, and upper-body muscular endurance. 

In short, Pilates is complementary to gym exercises in building endurance and working towards the overall goal of developing all the muscular layers, deep and superficial, needed to perform well in daily activities as well as in sports, 

Enhances Performance

With Pilates’s main goal being the development of stronger intrinsic muscles and a deeper understanding of the ‘core’, Pilates can easily be integrated into strength and conditioning programs to improve performance since these muscles are often required for traditional conditioning exercises. When approached with the increased mobility and deep muscle strength that you gain through Pilates, gym exercises that are difficult to execute correctly and demanding movements from high impact sports become easier.

Improves Movement Strategy and Range of Functional Movement

Besides building core strength and endurance, proper and consistent Pilates practice will improve flexibility, range of functional motion, breathing patterns, body awareness and posture. The way Pilates focuses on the quality of your movement means that Pilates shows you how to move better, in a way that both enhances performance and reduces the risk of injury in other activities—both when exercising and when performing everyday tasks. Pilates exercises also work to mobilise your spine and reduce back pain, thus increasing your functional fitness.  

Whether you are looking to improve your endurance, flexibility and base level of fitness through relatively low-intensity Pilates exercises to work up to a more intense strength and conditioning program or simply looking to find out how Pilates can be best worked into your existing routine to optimise your training results and fitness goals, we invite you to get in touch with us today!