We have all heard about the benefits of running and how it can help you:
- Lose weight
- Increase lung function
- Boost your immune system to help prevent disease
However, while running can do wonders for your overall health, it can also play havoc on your joints because running is a high impact form of exercise which involves the same repetitive movements. This places your joints, in particular your knees and hips under a lot of stress.
So it is very important to supplement your running with forms of exercise that help strengthen your joints such as Pilates.
Pilates has many benefits for runners including, but not limited to:
- Helps maintain and develop a strong core which improves postural alignment
- Increases the body’s flexibility, it’s strength, and balance
- Expands the diaphragm which improves breath
- Helps bodies avoid injuries in the first place and recover faster if sustained
A strong core is crucial to being a good runner because it improves efficiency when running and helps maintain proper form when runners do start to fatigue. Maintaining proper form when fatiguing is important for runners to avoid placing further strain on their legs and lower back, which increases significantly the risk of injury.
By increasing the body’s flexibility, strength and balance, a runner’s risk of injury can be minimised. Pilates techniques target balance, flexibility, and functional movements, which help strengthen and support the musculature around the torso, hips, shoulders and pelvis.
Pilates can also help expand your diaphragm which helps you breathe easier. Ease of breath is important for runners and non-runners alike. However runners who are looking for new ways to minimise their lung and leg fatigue will be able to use Pilates breathing techniques to expand their diaphragms.
The diaphragm does 80% of the work when breathing so it is highly important to know how to breathe more fully. By taking deeper breaths, more air sacs in the lungs are used, and this allows for more oxygen to be fed into the muscles. Pilates can definitely help runners develop better breathing techniques by coordinating both breathing and movement techniques together.
So it is very important to supplement your running with forms of exercise, such as Pilates, that help strengthen the muscles that support your joints. If you are a runner, or know someone who is, and you want to experience first-hand how Pilates can improve your running or any movement technique contact us today!
