One in every of our favourite health consultants is Sean Vigue (keep in mind the superior exercises he’s performed 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 means of Pilates.

Sean Vigue has taught 1000’s of courses around the globe and has appeared in greater than 2,000 well being and health movies. He’s optimistic, he is aware of his stuff, and his exercises are FUN. Principally, he’s one of the best!

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, whole physique conditioning program which options an exhaustive checklist of core centered workout routines, sequenced collectively to raise your thoughts, physique, spirit and athletic capacity. 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 applications 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 follow, take in and revel in. The advantages are nearly too exhausting to checklist, and there’s no finish to the methods Pilates elevates your well being, health, motion, pace, energy, management, stability, 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 powerful, sturdy, versatile and balanced core.

Joseph Pilates referred to the core as your “powerhouse” and “girdle of energy”. It’s the middle and help of your physique. The core is the structural basis that connects the remainder of the physique collectively and develops stability, energy, and management. It begins on the base of the pelvic ground 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 once they assume “abs”), transverse abdominis (the deepest of the belly muscle groups which wraps round your sides and backbone), erector spinae (a pair of muscle groups in your decrease again), the inner and exterior obliques (the muscle groups 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 changing into simply fatigued from failing posture. Pilates core workout routines prepare the muscle groups in your pelvis, decrease again, hips, glutes and stomach to work collectively, resulting in improved stability, stability and physique management. Each sport from basketball to tennis to throwing darts will depend on pressure radiating out of your middle (core) outwards into the limbs.

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

Athletes of all ages and health ranges have been incorporating Pilates into their coaching for improved general energy, stability and resistance to damage. It’s because it’s tough to discover a extra complete and efficient program than a daily Pilates mat follow. Pilates helps athletes enhance their everchanging motion patterns with progressive destabilization, that means the additional you journey into your exercises, the extra the workout routines will work to problem and pressure your physique to adapt and enhance. As soon as your physique adapts you purchase a better degree of ability.

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

3. Pilates improves mobility and ease of motion.

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

How effectively you progress your physique by means of a number of planes of motion determines your athletic success. Pilates coaching strikes your physique by means of each angle and airplane of motion whereas specializing in constructing energy and suppleness in your core. Having a physique which might simply adapt to the unpredictable calls for of a sport—fast adjustments of route in tennis, explosive pace in hockey, driving to the basket in basketball — gives you an enormous edge over your opponents and delay your profession.

4. Pilates improves general flexibility.

Joseph Pilates as soon as mentioned, “True flexibility could be achieved solely when all muscle groups are uniformly developed.” Because of this, Pilates doesn’t improve flexibility (outlined because the vary of movement in a joint or group of joints and transferring them by means of a full vary of movement) simply based mostly on the favored “scorching spots” of the physique, such because the hamstrings and low again. Relatively, Pilates works by means of fixed flows and actions which stretch, lengthen and develop the entire physique.

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

5. Pilates is a good instrument for rehabbing your physique throughout damage and fixing issues related to muscular imbalance.

Pilates mat follow is low impression on the joints, making it the best train when rehabbing your physique and recovering from an damage. You too can construction your Pilates exercises to your particular person wants — there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy to Pilates. You might be in charge of your coaching, not the workout routines. 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 possibly can prepare 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 possibly can rely completely on the best gymnasium you’ll ever have: your physique.

Your exercises can final from 10 to 60 minutes relying on how a lot energy, flexibility and focus you want at that second, and you may prepare on daily basis, mixing up your exercises so you might be persistently hitting new areas.

7. Pilates gives an everchanging, endless provide of workout routines and sequences to maintain you continually 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 workout routines develop into more difficult 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 “simple”, 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 groups and ligaments and improve your capacity to move with extra effectivity and precision. For athletes, the muse of management begins with good posture. From this basis comes the large actions reminiscent of leaping, tackling, swinging, throwing, catching and sprinting … but when your physique isn’t aligned appropriately, these actions will probably be compromised and weak.

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

9. Pilates improves your capacity to breathe.

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

Pilates teaches deep lateral thoracic respiration, which pulls the breath upward out of the low stomach and produce it into the perimeters and the low again. This fashion of respiration drenches the lungs and muscle groups in oxygen and will increase your capacity to herald 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.

Enhancing your capacity to breathe will drastically improve your athletic efficiency and talents. Efficient respiration requires thoracic mobility, core energy and a pliable diaphragm for pumping the breath out and in of the lungs. An athlete who’s using their full respiration potential will expertise elevated power, extra blood move, sharper focus, and enchancment when dealing with traumatic and unpredictable conditions. Pilates additionally teaches the athlete the way to breathe into the motion, which helps the workout routines move smoother by means of the total vary of movement and with extra management. Deeper respiration and elevated consciousness of the breath interprets into higher type and energy with swings, jumps, sprints, adjustments of instructions and throws. Join your breath with motion and reduce the wear and tear and tear whereas elevating your capacity to maneuver — a win-win-win.

10. Pilates improve your explosive pace and energy.

The Pilates combo of deep, expanded respiration, a stronger core, improved flexibility in all the physique, elevated energy and environment friendly motion mix to create a physique which might transfer faster, quicker and with extra pressure behind it. It’s fairly simple: the looser and extra in management you might be of your physique, the quicker your pace and extra purposeful your energy.

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 gives the instruments to do it.

Backside line: the advantages of Pilates are highly effective and transcend all sports activities. Each breath you’re taking and each transfer you make enhances your bodily and psychological efficiency, combining to create a deep-rooted love of bettering your self every 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! Make sure to choose up his newest ebook right here! —Jenn

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