Pilates Benefit #7: Reduce Injuries

Pilates can help reduce your risk of injury!

It’s simple really: A strong and flexible, healthy body helps us to move through life with ease. 

Remember our post about balance? Pilates focuses on strengthening the core muscles, helping us to move with balance and control, which in turn means you lower your chance of injury during movement.

Injuries can occur through the simplest movements.

You may step incorrectly when going up a flight of stairs, and how quickly you’re able to recover your balance is the difference between stability and injury.

In Pilates, we regularly work on both strengthening and stretching our muscles. As an example of a way to reduce injury: by increasing your hamstring flexibility, you’re able to bend over to pick something up from the ground with more ease, which reduces your risk of injury, and also protects your lower back.

So, you may be thinking: “Doesn’t this mean that any exercise in general will make us stronger and less prone to injuries?” Definitely not! Runners may run with incorrect alignment and end up with ankle sprain. Weight trainers push hard through their exercise regimes and may sustain injuries if not working with proper technique. Without a strong core to aid with strength and balance, even dancers may struggle to gracefully perform certain moves.

We often make the mistake of thinking that sports or activity in general will make us stronger. A sport or physical activity may focus on very specific movements and muscle groups, but does not cover strength and flexibility throughout the body as a whole.

With Pilates classes, we strengthen the body from the centre, or core, and work outwards.

 “To be prepared is half the victory.”

Try this now:

1. Sit on a chair and slide your body forward so that you’re sitting towards the front edge of the seat. (By sitting towards the very front edge, the body is less inclined to slouch.)
2. Ensure that your feet are placed flat on the ground, parallel and hip-width distance apart.
3. Draw the navel towards the spine.
4. Open your chest, sit up tall, and hold this position for at least 1 minute. No cheating! Use a stopwatch if needs be.

Do you feel any strain in your lower back or elsewhere? These are generally weaker areas in the body where muscles need to be strengthened.