Cross training With Pilates: How Athletes Boost Performance And Lower Injury Risk
Why professional sports players add pilates to their regular strength training schedule
Most competitive and recreational athletes spend nearly all their training time practicing their main sport and standard gym lifting routines. While these workouts build sport specific muscle power, they often leave small stabilizer muscle groups under trained. Weak stabilizer muscles create muscle imbalances across your body, which greatly raise your chance of suffering annoying overuse sports injuries such as ankle sprains, knee pain and pulled hamstring muscles. Adding Pilates as a weekly cross training workout solves this common athlete problem.
Ways improved core stability and body control benefit your main sport performance
Pilates targets those neglected deep stabilizer muscles, fixes muscle imbalances, improves spinal alignment and builds precise full body movement control. Many runners, tennis players, footballers and swimmers include 1-2 weekly pilates sessions inside their training plan. After several weeks of cross training, most athletes notice better balance, smoother movement patterns, fewer recurring overuse injuries and improved control during their main sport’s technical movements.
