Pilates & Elite Athletes

This fall I had a lot of fun doing Pilates with some hockey players from the Canadian National Team. Even after a decade in strength & conditioning, I feel so strongly about the benefits of Pilates for elite athletes. It’s so more than “abs” or “core.”

The other

night I tried to demonstrate this physically, comparing the “corkscrew” with a standard ab “hip lift.” Because athletes have to manage compound movements (multi-joint activity that work several muscles or muscle groups at one time), through elective control of an integrated system working at varying speeds, in various directions, and in various planes of movement, the dynamic movement of Pilates exercises ticks so many more boxes than most standard strength exercises (NB, they don’t replace the weight room or cardio).

Athletes have limited amounts of time outside of their sport practice & competition, so they need bang for their buck with complimentary training. Pilates improves mobility and core strength via six principles: concentration, centering, control, precision, breath & flow. It’s a system that was developed by an athlete (Joseph Pilates, 1883-1967: boxer, gymnast, trainer, and about 50 years ahead of his time) and addresses what high performance athletes need in order to produce those elusive moments in competition where it feels like time is suspended. When you are hyper-aware, but it doesn’t need to be forced - some people call it the zone. Once you feel it, you know it, and mostly you live for it to happen again, whether it’s hang time in basketball, or skillfully cutting around an opponent to take a shot on goal, or propelling yourself through space like quicksilver. It’s the foundation of Pilates. It’s there in the breathing, in the pelvic stability, in the spinal articulation. Over the years Pilates has been watered down into a fitness trend, a lot of classes are taught with props now - balls, bands, etc., which is fine but not really necessary. And if you look at the historical videos on YouTube you’ll see that the warm up and jumps have been discarded, and the breathing is no longer so dynamic, all in an effort to present Pilates as a gentle form of exercise. Which it can, and should be, with the appropriate clientele.

For those who have been lucky enough to learn from others, who learned from those who learned from Pilates, and his wife, Clara (there are fewer and fewer around), they know that Pilates wanted to create strong, mobile bodies. Which is what athletes should be.

His long-haul perspective of a life of physical activity is a hallmark of his method, and is the approach of every serious athlete. It’s in the daily grind, and in the ongoing pursuit of fleeting moments of glory. It’s why I continue to teach Pilates today, to communicate small pieces of physical knowledge to (hopefully) help people add to, and improve on their own physical journey towards excellence, whether that is on a podium, or simply personal pride in attaining a physical goal. Because as Pilates said: “Every moment of our life can be the beginning of great things.”