Pilates and Women’s Fitness
When I started this blog, my intention was to stick to a sort of business-y focused look at the women’s market, but I knew my women’s sport and fitness bent would seep in occasionally. Well, today my topic is Pilates – for two reasons: 1) I, just this morning (again), was touting the benefits Pilates would give my dad in his mission to maintain his fitness level into his 70s. His goal is to gain strong enough abs to support his back – so he can return to playing racquetball again, and thus use his sizzling serve to frighten people half his age. He has taken it as “food for thought,” (argh) but I’ll keep you posted if all my Pilates evangelism finally works on him. 2) I just read the latest issue of Elle magazine (I have to read every women’s magazine out there – it’s for work!!) and there was a little blurb entitled “Core Differences” in the fitness section. And I quote:
“A recent study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that the strength of a woman’s stomach, back, and hip muscles was a good indication of whether she’d be susceptible to leg injury. ‘If the muscle groups close to the body’s center of mass don’t give the leg a stable foundation to push against when a woman is running or jumping, the thigh will rotate inward and the knee follows,’ says John Willson, a researcher in the biomechanics department of the University of Delaware and an author of the study. ‘This leads to all sorts of leg problems.’”
Since I’ve been doing Pilates, I have become much better at all my other sporting pursuits and I feel much stronger overall than I ever did before (when I thought I was quite fit, thank you). Because I’ve focused on it a while, my knees stay over my ankles and my hips stay over my knees, so I am less inclined to twist my ankle or hurt my knees like I used to. In addition, my low back does not freak out after a day of gardening. Anyway…
I’ll stop myself from going on and on by mentioning that, lucky for you, I do have a writing outlet for my Pilates and outdoor sports obsessions in occasional contributions to newer magazines like Pilates Style and CarbLite (web site is not up yet), so I will try to keep it from seeping into Learned on Women too often.
In the meantime, if the idea of giving Pilates a try has been floating through your head recently – I HIGHLY recommend it (of course)!
P.S. The photo is courtesy of my good friends at Bodycenter Studios in Seattle, where my own passion for Pilates grew to obsessive proportions (in a good way).
