Considered one of our favourite health consultants is Sean Vigue (keep in mind the superior exercises he’s carried out for us?). And, guess what?! He has a brand new ebook out!

Pilates for Athletes helps on a regular basis individuals (regardless of their sport or exercise they like to do) attain their highest bodily and psychological ranges and enhance their conditioning, management, endurance, and extra — all by way of Pilates.

Sean Vigue has taught hundreds of courses world wide and has appeared in greater than 2,000 well being and health movies. He’s constructive, he is aware of his stuff, and his exercises are FUN. Principally, he’s the most effective!

And, we’re tremendous pumped that he’s letting us share an excerpt from his new ebook. Learn on for the highest 10 explanation why athletes ought to add Pilates into their coaching.

High 10 Causes Why Athletes Want Pilates Mat Coaching

By Sean Vigue

Pilates mat coaching is a bodyweight-only, complete physique conditioning program which options an exhaustive listing of core centered workouts, sequenced collectively to raise your thoughts, physique, spirit and athletic skill. Solely a Pilates (or yoga) mat is required to take part. No weights. No machines. Simply you and the mat.

Strictly talking, there should not many exercise packages that may ship to an athlete the huge quantity of advantages that Pilates mat can. It’s a lifelong program for the well-rounded athlete to apply, take up and luxuriate in. The advantages are nearly too exhausting to listing, and there’s no finish to the methods Pilates elevates your well being, health, motion, velocity, power, management, steadiness, endurance, breath management, focus, energy and suppleness.

That mentioned, listed here are 10 of the highest explanation why athletes want Pilates Mat Coaching.

1. Pilates constructs a robust, sturdy, versatile and balanced core.

Joseph Pilates referred to the core as your “powerhouse” and “girdle of power”. It’s the heart and help of your physique. The core is the structural basis that connects the remainder of the physique collectively and develops stability, power, and management. It begins on the base of the pelvic flooring and runs upward to the underside of the diaphragm, and consists of your abdominals, low again and glutes. Technically talking, the core is made up of the rectus abdominis (the muscle individuals imply after they suppose “abs”), transverse abdominis (the deepest of the belly muscle tissue which wraps round your sides and backbone), erector spinae (a pair of muscle tissue in your decrease again), the interior and exterior obliques (the muscle tissue situated on the perimeters of your stomach) and the glutes/backside/butt (the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus).

A weak core leaves the athlete open to accidents, compromised endurance and turning into simply fatigued from failing posture. Pilates core workouts practice the muscle tissue in your pelvis, decrease again, hips, glutes and stomach to work collectively, resulting in improved steadiness, stability and physique management. Each sport from basketball to tennis to throwing darts relies on pressure radiating out of your heart (core) outwards into the limbs.

2. Pilates builds a robust, balanced and resilient physique.

Athletes of all ages and health ranges have been incorporating Pilates into their coaching for improved total power, steadiness and resistance to harm. It is because it’s troublesome to discover a extra complete and efficient program than an everyday Pilates mat apply. Pilates helps athletes enhance their everchanging motion patterns with progressive destabilization, that means the additional you journey into your exercises, the extra the workouts will work to problem and pressure your physique to adapt and enhance. As soon as your physique adapts you purchase a better stage of ability.

Every train is equally balanced on each side of the physique to counteract the imbalances seen in sports activities resembling tennis, golf or baseball, the place the dominant aspect is favored and strengthened whereas the opposite aspect weakens and atrophies. Pilates works to repair muscular imbalances and convey symmetry to the physique, bringing with it optimum bodily achievement.

3. Pilates improves mobility and ease of motion.

Pilates workouts emphasize wholesome, flowing and proper motion. Is your physique cell? How succesful are you of transferring your physique shortly with out pressure? Can you transfer freely by way of the day with out tightness and discomfort in your physique? How nicely do you progress as an athlete? Is your mobility serving to or hurting your athletic ability?

How nicely you progress your physique by way of a number of planes of motion determines your athletic success. Pilates coaching strikes your physique by way of each angle and aircraft of motion whereas specializing in constructing power and suppleness in your core. Having a physique which may simply adapt to the unpredictable calls for of a sport—fast adjustments of course in tennis, explosive velocity in hockey, driving to the basket in basketball — gives you an enormous edge over your opponents and extend your profession.

4. Pilates improves total flexibility.

Joseph Pilates as soon as mentioned, “True flexibility may be achieved solely when all muscle tissue are uniformly developed.” Because of this, Pilates doesn’t enhance flexibility (outlined because the vary of movement in a joint or group of joints and transferring them by way of a full vary of movement) simply primarily based on the favored “sizzling spots” of the physique, such because the hamstrings and low again. Moderately, Pilates works by way of fixed flows and actions which stretch, lengthen and increase the entire physique.

The place many exercises isolate muscle tissue and compress the physique and backbone, Pilates does simply the alternative: each Pilates train is designed to elongate and increase your physique by way of a myriad of flows and angles. It’s flowing, dynamic motion which stretches and strengthens the muscle tissue concurrently. You’ll easily and gracefully circulation from one threshold to the following, transferring your physique with precision and management by way of as full a variety of movement as attainable.

5. Pilates is a superb device for rehabbing your physique throughout harm and fixing issues related to muscular imbalance.

Pilates mat apply is low influence on the joints, making it the perfect train when rehabbing your physique and recovering from an harm. You too can construction your Pilates exercises to your particular person wants — there isn’t any one-size-fits-all strategy to Pilates. You’re answerable for your coaching, not the workouts. They exist to serve you and your particular bodily, psychological and conditioning wants.

6. Pilates mat solely makes use of your body weight, so you may practice anyplace and anytime.

Environment friendly and simply adaptable to your present coaching program, Pilates can match into the busiest of schedules. No weights, gear or machines of any variety means you may rely completely on the best fitness center you’ll ever have: your physique.

Your exercises can final from 10 to 60 minutes relying on how a lot power, flexibility and focus you want at that second, and you’ll practice daily, mixing up your exercises so you might be constantly hitting new areas.

7. Pilates offers an everchanging, unending provide of workouts and sequences to maintain you consistently challenged.

Athletes must be challenged to pressure their our bodies to adapt and enhance. Pilates coaching is a journey of progressive destabilization with each exercise. The workouts grow to be tougher and integrative as you progress, and with every new train, you combine new components of your physique into the actions. As soon as the train turns into too “straightforward”, we add a motion which forces your physique to adapt and enhance in actual time. It doesn’t matter what the athlete wants, Pilates can provide it.

8. Pilates builds and reinforces correct posture and alignment.

Having correct physique alignment — how the pinnacle, shoulders, backbone, hips, knees and ankles relate and line up with one another — improves your posture and reduces the stress and pressure on the backbone. Standing, sitting and transferring with correct postural alignment will lower pressure in your muscle tissue and ligaments and enhance your skill to circulation with extra effectivity and precision. For athletes, the muse of management begins with good posture. From this basis comes the massive actions resembling leaping, tackling, swinging, throwing, catching and sprinting … but when your physique will not be aligned accurately, these actions will likely be compromised and weak.

Good posture, working in tandem with a robust core, helps stabilize the physique and help the athlete’s want for velocity, energy, rotational pressure and fast adjustments of course. Pilates will assist reinforce good posture and alignment throughout each part of your sport.

9. Pilates improves your skill to breathe.

Too usually, we breathe in a shallow technique, draining our vitality and focus and crippling our posture. Deep Pilates respiratory strengthens the core and lifts our our bodies into a robust, aligned posture.

Pilates teaches deep lateral thoracic respiratory, which pulls the breath upward out of the low stomach and convey it into the perimeters and the low again. This type of respiratory drenches the lungs and muscle tissue in oxygen and will increase your skill to usher in and course of the breath with effectivity. It helps you benefit from each breath cycle, drawing contemporary oxygen into the lungs and squeezing each atom of breath out, filling and emptying the lungs with each breath.

Bettering your skill to breathe will drastically enhance your athletic efficiency and skills. Efficient respiratory requires thoracic mobility, core power and a pliable diaphragm for pumping the breath out and in of the lungs. An athlete who’s using their full respiratory potential will expertise elevated vitality, extra blood circulation, sharper focus, and enchancment when dealing with traumatic and unpredictable conditions. Pilates additionally teaches the athlete how you can breathe into the motion, which helps the workouts circulation smoother by way of the total vary of movement and with extra management. Deeper respiratory and elevated consciousness of the breath interprets into higher kind and energy with swings, jumps, sprints, adjustments of instructions and throws. Join your breath with motion and reduce the damage and tear whereas elevating your skill to maneuver — a win-win-win.

10. Pilates enhance your explosive velocity and energy.

The Pilates combo of deep, expanded respiratory, a stronger core, improved flexibility in the complete physique, elevated power and environment friendly motion mix to create a physique which may transfer faster, sooner and with extra pressure behind it. It’s fairly easy: the looser and extra in management you might be of your physique, the sooner your velocity and extra useful your power.

Whether or not it means transferring faster with extra precision when rolling out for a soccer move, maneuvering across the protection en path to the objective in hockey, or planting, leaping and spiking the ball in volleyball with explosive energy, Pilates offers the instruments to do it.

Backside line: the advantages of Pilates are highly effective and transcend all sports activities. Each breath you are taking and each transfer you make enhances your bodily and psychological efficiency, combining to create a deep-rooted love of bettering your self each day. On this, Pilates is a continuing and devoted companion. Strive it!

Excerpted  from Pilates for Athletes with permission from Hatherleigh Press.

An enormous because of Sean for letting us share this gem of an excerpt! Be sure you decide up his newest ebook right here! —Jenn

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