Pilates

beefcake2

Hello

I read that pilates can be of help to cyclists with regard to posture, core strength and breathing. Have any of you ever tried pilates and does it work? How often do you need to do it to get any benefit?

I am asking because I have just joined my local gym and classes are included in the memebership. They do a beginners class a couple of times a week in the evening that I could go to after work.

Cheers

Beefcake2

Feltup

My Sister is a pilates instructor and having seen her clients come in on day one to go out after a few weeks I would say it definitely works. I can't afford her time so haven't got much first hand experience apart from her trying to inflict pain on me with some of her more advanced exercises.

The problem with pilates is finding a decent teacher. My sis trained under Alan Hardman for over a year and has a very good base knowledge of human physiology so she can tell very quickly if you are able to do an exercise or if she needs to tweak it for you. I get the feeling a lot of so called pilates instructors are self trained and next to useless.

toontra

I've been doing pilates twice a week for over a year now. It took it up because I've been doing a lot of cycle training for long events and was worried things would get out of kilter, and that 20-hour days in the saddle could cause back and neck problems.

I think it's helping. Put it this way, it certainly hasn't done any harm, and I haven't had any problems on the bike since starting. A bonus is that my posture (never very good) has improved, so it has benefits beyond cycling.

As has been said, it depends on the tutor, but if it's free give it a go!

Headhuunter

That's what I have heard too. I don't think many gym pilates classes are up to much. If you want to do it properly you have to pay through the nose for a decent teacher otherwise it's essentially just a glorified stretch session.

Having said that, doing some decent stretches can work wonders to keep you supple and your joints and muscles in good health. Cyclists often suffer from shortened hamstrings, due to that fact that you use your hamstrings when they are not fully extended. Also patellar tracking, caused by excessive strength in the muscles at the side of teh thigh pulling the knee cap across at the vastus medalis muscle being unable to counterbalance this. Both these problems can be helped with regular stretching apparently.

bahzob

I got into cycling by trying to get fit and in early days included pilates. Still do regular core exercises though not pilates (for practical reasons of not having space for ball or opportunity to go to classes). Sure this has helped both prevent any back problems on even longest rides and with going faster/further.

merlinghnd

I would recommend pilates. It can be a deceptively easy thing to do at the start of a lesson and as somebody said feel like glorified stretching but suddenly you are doing an exercise and really feel something. It is also worth remembering how important stretching is to overall fitness. I would say go for 3 or 4 lessons and then make a decision, 1 lesson is not enough to make an informed decision.

woody-som

it does work, I know, I've done it for 2 years, and now at a very high standard, was asked if i wanted to train as an instructor.
It does seem easy, but you need to do a minimum of 6 weeks before you really notice the difference, or as Joseph Pilates said, in 10 sessions you will feel the difference, in 20 sessions, you will see the difference and in 30 sessions other people will see the difference. These times are actually slightly longer than what I've experienced over the years from fellow students, but personally after about 8 weeks, my swimming which was poor suddenly got a lot better, flexability has improved, so go find a class at your local gym if you can, even a poor instructor will offer you advice and guidance that you can't get from a book, and some of the advanced moves are really hard and will take most people years to achieve. I can do moves that my instructor who has been doing it for over 5 years can't, but some of it's down to strength and body design.

rjh299

Headhuunter wrote:

Also patellar tracking, caused by excessive strength in the muscles at the side of teh thigh pulling the knee cap across at the vastus medalis muscle being unable to counterbalance this. Both these problems can be helped with regular stretching apparently.

This is keeping me off the bike at the moment. Been two weeks and got another week to go before i can eaese back in. Physio has told me i have tight calves aswell. Rest and stretches should fix it apparently though. So any strectching activity is good to do because it can only help really. I'm considering doing a few yoga classes just to see what it's like and try and help fix/prevent injury.