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How Pilates compares to yoga and strength training to improve overall workout regime

Many athletes know they should be doing something proactive to help their bodies cope with the rigours of their sport. We know we need to add complementary training to our sport-specific workouts to help lengthen, strengthen and add flexibility to our bodies. However, many of us don't know where to start. It's important to determine what your body needs and to understand the similarities and differences between Pilates, yoga and strength training -
three different approaches to complementary training.

Pilates
Pilates, named after Joseph Pilates who developed the system of exercises in the early 1900s, is one of the best-kept secrets to overall performance enhancement. It is a full-body workout that focuses on deep core strength by developing your transverse abdominals and gluteals. Core strength is also increased from shoulder girdle stabilization, neutral spine alignment and breathing. So the question stands, why is Pilates so important for athletes?

• Body awareness: Learning where your body is in space is eye-opening and important in all sports in order to improve technically.

• Efficiency of movement: Many athletes exert too much energy for the movement required. Pilates teaches you to use the minimum number of muscles per action. For example, imagine the efficiency of cyclists who keeps their shoulders down and relax their upper bodies, allowing the blood to oxygenate their leg muscles. Sounds easy, but it doesn't come naturally to most.

• Proper firing patterns: When movements are initiated from the core, an athlete has more control, power and balance. For example, learning how to fire from your gluteals first, then your quads - hence the term I like to use, "squeeze your little butt cheeks."

• Strengthening small/underdeveloped muscle groups: Even elite athletes have weak muscle groups. It is easy to overwork your larger muscles, such as the quads, because they take over naturally. If a cross-country skier's gluteus medius (smaller muscle) could take over some of the workload of the quad, a skier would feel less tired executing the stride.

• The Powerhouse: Your core is like good quality, stiff, sporting equipment. In rowing, for example, it is important to have a stiff rigger and oar, because when a rower loads up the oar at the start of the stroke and drives though the water with explosive power, the athlete doesn't want any of this work being lost in soft, forgiving equipment. To transfer this analogy to the body, the rower wants to start the drive of the stroke with a strong core rather than soft. A soft core causes a loss of energy with the collapse of the spine or shoulders. A direct connection with the leg drive and the movement of the oar through the water is the desired effect.

So, where does yoga and strength training come in?

Yoga
Yoga is a spiritual practice that uses the body to achieve a higher level of consciousness. To compliment your workout regime, yoga is great for some key aspects.

• Flexibility: People with extreme tightness can benefit from the long poses that allow the body to relax and sink into a stretch, lengthening muscles. Pilates also lengthens muscles.

• Strength: Similarly to Pilates, yoga has a strength component. Many yoga poses are very athletic and challenging.

• Balance: Yoga helps to maintain balance through movement, ethics, breathing and meditation. In comparison, Pilates is strictly a functional workout.

Strength Training
Strength training macro-manages your body, while Pilates micro-manages it. In other words, strength training involves big movements with big muscle groups, whereas Pilates movements are controlled and focus on recruiting smaller muscle groups.

As long as you are strength training in a safe manner, the emphasis will often be on going harder, faster and stronger, as opposed to the emphasis in Pilates, which is efficiency, proper firing patterns and deep core work.

What does strength training have to offer?

• Power: The focus is on developing large muscle groups using weights or body weight. Explosive power is great for racing.

• Strength: Overall body strength is most significantly achieved from this type of training. Pilates develops overall body strength, but to a lesser degree.

• Stabilizer muscles: A by-product of good strength training is developing stabilizer muscles, such as the 16 muscles attached to your scapula. Pilates targets these types of muscles specifically.

In a perfect world, a combination of Pilates and or yoga, strength and cardio all contribute to the ultimate program for healthy, fit people. Cardio and strength are the cornerstones of most athletes' workout regimes, while Pilates and yoga are important supplements. If you can only choose one due to time or money restraints, think about what your focus is. If it is becoming more efficient, developing your deep core strength, strengthening your small/weak muscles groups, creating proper firing patterns or body awareness to improve technically, Pilates is likely a good fit.

As an instructor, there are subtleties learned in Pilates that I have not seen taught in such careful detail in any other discipline. Finesse and attention to detail can make a good athlete a great one. Surprisingly, deep core strength and
body intelligence is a stone many
athletes leave unturned.

In some sports, the importance of strength training is uncertain, which may give you some freedom in your program.
If you want to truly test the virtues of Pilates, put strength on hold for six months. Commit to a Pilates program, three times a week, allowing your muscles to lengthen and relearn movement, and then
reintroduce strength.

About the Author

Marilyn Taylor, B.Com., owns Taylor Made Pilates in Calgary and is a certified instructor in Romana-style Pilates. Taylor is a former Canadian national team rower who won gold at the Pan Am Games, competed at the World Championships and won the single scull at the 2003 Canadian Olympic Trials.

"Pilates for Performance" first appeared in the 2010 July/August Summer Sports Issue of IMPACT Magazine.